 Shane, how are you mate? Yeah, good Chris. Are you down under at the minute? Yep, yeah, I live in Sydney, just right on Sydney Harbour there. Nice, right by, what's the beach called? Bondi. Bondi, isn't it? Yeah, of course. How can I get that? No, on the other side of the Harbour, the north side, so more closer to Manley Beach. But literally, I leave about 400 metres to the northern side of the Harbour Bridge. Wow, yes. And did you grow up in that area? Are you sort of like a water, you know, a surfing person? So my mum and dad had a house on the northern beaches of Sydney, you know, just on the beach. So I did, I was a little nipper, but I also spent a lot of time out in the bush with my nan and pop. So I would rotate between living on a farm out in the bush to living on the beach with mum and dad. So a bit of the Crocodile Dundee sort of stuff. Yeah, well, no Crocs, lots of kangaroos and lots of snakes. What's the deal then? Because when I was in Australia, there was kangaroos being run over like every 100 metres on the road. There's actually more kangaroos in Australia now than there was when the first fleet landed because of the clearance of land and more dams. And they are in nuisance. On a lot of the army bases, they've given them a slow release poison that kind of gives them essentially MS. So when you're driving on an army range, you'll see them hopping like they're drunk. But yeah, there's thousands of them. And how did you get a first taste for all things military? Well, so as I was saying, I grew up with my nan and pop as well and my pop was a World War II or both of my grandfathers were World War II veterans. My pops and my mum's dad, he was a 16-year-old infantryman up in the Dakota track fighting off the Japanese. And my grandfather and my dad's father was a signaler with independent commandos in Northern Australia and Timor when the independent commandos were behind Japanese lines conducting guerrilla unconventional warfare campaigns. So as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a soldier. One of my uncles was in the SAS from about 79 right through to 36 years. So I did Army cadets. When I was 16, I went cadet of the year and met Duke of Embra. So it's just something that was always ingrained in me. And how did you take steps to join? What was the process? So back then, as long as you had passes in, just to be a general soldier, as long as you had passes in U9 Maths and English, yeah, you were in. So back then, you joined and then at recruit school, they gave you a job. Whereas today, you pretty much get online and you pick the job you want to do and you apply for it and do some aptitude tests. So it can take a lot longer for people to get in now. But I think I, three weeks from signing the dotted line to being at recruit school in 95. And did I get it right? You joined the Navy first or? No, no. So I joined the Army first. And then I hurt my back in 97 and went through some rehab. And I had a, the only restriction I had was I couldn't carry a pack over 25 kilos, which pretty much ruled me out of combat arms. And then my uncle, who was in the SAS, he said, mate, the Navy clearance divers don't carry packs. And they also, you know, are in the special operations environment. You could get across and do that. So I did, I went across from the Army to the Navy in 2000. And then as a dive, you've got to have medicals about every six weeks to check, you know, your teeth and some other stuff. And I looked at my med docs and it pretty much said I was fit for everything. The restriction had been removed somehow. And I said to the doctor, is that correct? And the doctor goes, what? And I said, oh, I've got no restrictions. And the doctor goes, yeah. So I left booked in to say another doctor to confirm it. And soon as that doctor confirmed that I'd had no restrictions on my med docs, I went straight and service transferred back to the Army. Wow. Did you do a lot of diving? Yeah. So during that service transfer period, I was actually a dive instructor at the Army dive wing. On HMAS Penguin and Sydney Harbor, which is how I wound up living where I live. So yeah. So I did it both the Navy side of the house initially. And then as an instructor in the Army side of the house, it was some of the best, the most physical training, the Navy selection course, the CDAT. It's only two weeks, but it's completely different to your Army selections where it's a lot of pack marching or tabbing and stuff. This is, you do a little bit of it, but it's canoeing and stretch carries, canoe to this point. And then carry canoes to this reference point. There'll be somewhere there to give you a code and give you next directions. So it's a combination of teamwork, endurance, following instructions. Because one thing they're really trying to test you, the first three days are just flog PT sessions. You do a seven hour swim across Sydney Harbor at night. You do a 20 kilometer run and stuff. But it's to get you physically tired. And then they constantly will give you information and then try to ask you that information to see how much you're attained. Because as a diver, you could be underwater doing a welding task or doing a mine countermeasures task for a couple of hours and you're cold. So they're really trying to see, can you remain focused in arduous conditions? So it's not so much about your Army selections where can you carry 40 kilos on your back for 15 kilometers, conduct a dynamic assault or some sort of clearance and then get out, you know, firemen carrying stuff. It's different, but at the end of the day, they're still trying to test your intestinal fortitude. Will you give up? Can you be clear in some sort of chaos? So, yeah, so did all that. And then in that time, that was obviously 9-11 and the Australians sent some SAS guys to Afghanistan and then Iraq. And that pretty much wound up, you know, through when I was going back into the Army. So I actually wanted to be a loadie for the aviation regiment, the Blackhawks. And while I was waiting for that, I got offered to go to Iraq on a training job, training the new Iraqi commandos. So I did that. And just going back to diving, because as a diver, I'm quite fascinated. Even in the fairly warm waters of Australia, I'm guessing you still wear a dry suit. No, no, no, no. So I think I only dived once in my career in a dry suit. It was all double thick wetsuits. Yeah. So Sydney Harbour. And that's one thing they really test for in the selection phase. So whenever you're surface swimming or doing water, PT, you're doing it in overalls. You're only allowed to shower outside in cold water. So they're really trying to... And it's something that you can't train yourself how you deal with hypothermia or how your body reacts to cold water and cold weather. Yeah. So even when you do your night swim, surface swim across to Manly Beach and back. And I did mine in winter. That was just with a wetsuit on. No dry suit. And it's a bit like the Buds philosophy, you know, cold, wet and tired. But definitely when you're in a dive team doing underwater battle damage stuff, dry suits would be the go in Southern Australia for sure. Yeah. My first diving was about minus seven degrees centigrade land temperature. So it was in February in English winter. And we had really thick neoprene. I think it was even thicker than five mil. It was like sort of eight, eight mil or something. Yeah. So we'll have a seven mil. And then in winter we'll have a 10 mil overcoat with a hood on. Yeah. But I did my first initial, it's a weekend screen in Melbourne. That's near the Bass Strait where it's cold. And you've got to do a day dive, pretty much just go down to four metres, clear goggles and stuff to make sure you can be composed. Then they make you do it at night, pitch black. You put a wet wetsuit on. And I remember, and I was only talking about this other day, I was so focused on the drills of taking my mask off, putting it on and clearing it, that it scented me. So I wasn't thinking about the cold or what else was going on. I was just focused on that. And I actually took that with me, focus on what you can control on the task at hand and don't fix that on the environment. That's out of you can control, I guess. And how was the rack then? So which, can I just say regiment of the army did you join? So I actually went over with, it was a private military contract, but they were all recruited out of the reserve commando element. And so there was about eight of us that went across. And we basically, we were a place called Anyumonia, which is about 80 k south of Baghdad near Al Qut, which is very relevant to the Brits. There's the cemeteries in Al Qut from like 1910, where BP set up. It was the first place that the British actually got oil out of Mesopotamia. And it's funny, you'll still see some desert Arabs that are redheaded, but they're grandfathers and that would have been English soldiers way back when. So yeah, we were down there and at first we were the only ones they had just heard the the bath vacation policy, but we still got, but we got essentially 900 Iraqis that we had to put through a commando course because they were the special police commando brigade. And then they were going to fight in the second battle of Fallujah. Yes, that was, was that the big battle? Was that the first one? The second one, yeah. Yeah, that was, that was a lot of devastation, wasn't it? Yeah, but it's, and I was in there for that. It's, there was a couple of things that play geopolitically. So the US Army conventional forces were in a ripout just prior to it. So it was the 82nd Airborne were leaving and the Marines were coming in. And the Marines had actually been training in America to come in and you know, more of an engagement philosophy, which was a little bit rare for them, but we're going to wear our uniforms. So when we get there, we can reengage with the local shakes. As to say, we aren't the previous people. We're all going to clean slate how we work together. But as they were leaving America and coming in Iraq, that's when the Blackwater incident happened in Fallujah, where they got the four contractors and killed them and hung them up on the bridge. So that changed things for what the Marines wanted to do, literally 180 degrees over going in. So they had a Psyops campaign for about three weeks prior to the battle. They built a man camp up at Haditha Dam, which is about 40 Ks to the north of Fallujah. And they just said to everyone, you know, at this time, we're coming in and if you stay, then you're an enemy. You know, if you leave, you've got somewhere to stay up there. You've got free food, free medical care and not many people left. And I think that shocked America too. And if you've seen American Sniper, that is pretty accurate of what Fallujah was like. They just hated man, woman, child. They were, you know, yes, you had a lot of al-Qaeda remnants. You know, al-Qaeda and Iraq and Saqawi's group in there. But just the local residents, Shia residents to their core were very hard-lined. And, you know, that's where ISIS started. And, yeah, it was something that on from both sides, working with the Marines in that kind of conflict and battle really was like, this is what true warriors look like. But then seeing how committed the Iraqis were, you know, you'd be patrolling along and they'd be throwing hot water and hot fat out of windows. And because everywhere was just rubbish and bricks and stuff, you just didn't know where was an IED. But it was also scary how quickly you became accustomed to that chaos. The indirect fire and, you know, it was, I guess, the closest thing that someone could see what World War II would have been like after D-Day. Yeah. And did you say what regiment you were with? So I went over as a contractor. Is that like a private military? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was part of the Coalition Military Assistant Training Team project. And then there was CPAT Coalition Police Assistant Training Team. So it started as a CPAT contract through Dinecore and they were to just train Iraqi police. And then what happened was they changed it to CMAT and they changed the program to we were training a new Iraqi commando force essentially in mechanized infantry tactics to go in and for that battle. So we got recruited because we had, you know, infantry and commando and experience. And we were just going to train that doctrine into these Iraqi commandoes. And what year was this to give us an idea? So I got to Numenia in August 2004. 2004. And what filled in the time between when you arrived in Iraq and when you left as a Navy diver? So I actually had service transferred back to the Army and was an Army diving instructor at the dive school at HMAS Penguin and waiting for my course to start in the following year. But then when I got offered, because initially it was only a three month contract. Just to do this one, you know, they were there for three months to train this 900 Iraqi commandoes. And that was pretty much it at that stage. So I just took leave of that pay. But then after a few weeks on the ground, they said, No, this is going to be an evolving contract. You're going to train more and more recruits. And I just fell in love with it. So I discharged over there. And there was a lot of guys that did that too. Was the money quite high? So I initially went over on 600 US a day. But then when I got recruited by the US to go on to a US government project, I was on 1100 a day. That's pretty tempting, isn't it? For any person, but particularly a youngish man. And back then the tax laws in Australia were, you know, I literally didn't pay any tax. So I was getting $17,000 a fortnight in my account. But, you know, I got shot three times and blown up. So there was no, there was definitely risk and reward. Tell us about that. So how I got my job, where we were at New Manila, we had no life support. And literally it was an Iraqi Army base. And there were some American contractors that were looking at the base security. And they didn't have enough guys to run a convoy to the closest US Army base and fulfill their manning. And we were the same. So we did a deal with them. We'll supplement the convoy with shooters. If that means we can go and get, you know, protein powder or whatever. So we did that. So I was on one of them and we got ambushed and I was outside returning fire and whatever. And one of the guys in the convoy was actually the country security manager. And so he hit me up for a job. And I was like, yeah, 100%. This is what I came here for. Yeah, I didn't really come here to train. I came here to find out what war was about being a, you know, naive 28 year old. Anyway, so we, one of the first jobs we had was, and it's, you've got to really understand the context of what was going on in Iraq and America at the time. So this is in Iraq in October 04. They transitioned from the coalition provisional authority to the Intramaraki government and then multinational forces Iraq. So you effectively had a puppet Intramaraki government that we're going to take over why the Americans were going to mentor them through their first political process or election process in the early 05. But at the same time, George Bush Jr. was running for reelection against John Kerry in America. So you had all of Iraq in a curfew between they couldn't go out between 10 at 9, 6 in the morning. And then you had a George Bush was one of his election things was I'm going to withdraw the US troops in Iraq. But what they weren't looking at is how much Iraq was costing. So that's when a lot of contracting exploded. And there's, but one of the first things I had to do was under the UN mandate being a mercenary is illegal. So actually that's when the terms private security contractor and private military contractor essentially came into being and they were very delineated. So a private security contractor is someone doing security on a fob or on a base or a convoy or something. A private military contractor was doing the role of the military. And so what the first contract that I was on is as part of CMAT. We were QRF intelligence, offensive, pretty much everything within all CMAT basis. So we had a 50 kilometers around each base we were responsible for. So if there were IDs or indirect fire or QRF, we were responsible for dealing with collecting that information. So that, you know, both offensively patrolling and so because George Bush wanted to be seen and this started, this is December, January. So I was in Fallujah November. Most of November started December then rolled into this role. And one of the bases we're working at, the insurgents had really started hitting private military companies on certain roads leaving Hillar. And so our role was to go down those roads and find out where they're getting ambush from and who's doing it. So essentially where the tethered goat. And we turned up at this US Marine checkpoint at about 1.30 in the morning on the 23rd of December. And I was the two I see at that stage. So I'm in the lead vehicle. And you know, it's winter. So I'm gonna turn around and the little picket comes out and he goes, what are you guys doing? And I was in a US uniform and then my accent, it speaks to that usually spin them out. And I said, oh, you know, we're heading down this road. We're looking for the engagement points for whether insurgents are engaging contractors and logistics convoys. And they go, well, every time someone drives down the road about 300 meters, they start getting shot at. And I'm like, all right, that's what we're after. And all the guys that I was with predominantly American were like, all right, let's get it on. So we had a three vehicle convoy. The front and rear vehicle had M60s and the middle vehicle had a PKM. They were F350s, tricked up. So sprained a tan to the same color of a Humvee. And the roofs had a hole cut in and actually had a Humvee turret put in the top. And the reason we use them and not Humvees is, A, they could go a lot faster. So a Humvee, even on an Iraq freeway, probably get about 110 Ks. And at this time, they were setting up Daisy Chain 105 IDs, 12 in a row. So speed was, we wanted speed so we could get these F350s up to about 170 Ks. They had a greater range with fuel. And because of the tray on the back, we could carry a lot more ammunition and give it in a contact. If we had wounded, you could literally just throw them on the back rather than trying to stuff them in a Humvee. And we had arm ox ballistic armor inside the vehicle. And they'd rip the seats up and put, you know, ballistic blankets down. And so they're essentially probably a B4 armored vehicle. Anyway, so yeah, we start heading down and I'll never forget it. We're on nods and it was like Star Wars. I just saw the tracer. They engaged and me and the driver, we literally just slumped and the rounds come through and then you heard them hit the vehicle and the gunner stopped shooting. And then I'm out the window and then I caught one from behind in the back of my plate. It was like being hit with a sledgehammer because what they were doing is they'd engage on one side and then two to 300 metres down the road. They'd engage from the other because they're trying to catch out. Everyone's shooting to the right and they're hitting you from the left and they would shoot low to try to disable the vehicle because one of the things they were trying to do then is get Western hostages because if you remember there was that big spike on the website used to be called ogreish where they were doing a lot of cutting off the heads and that of contractors in Iraq. So that was one of their plays, disable the vehicle and get in and get you like they saw an Fallouz, you know, drag the bodies out. So our TTPs were, if you're on the left side of the vehicle, you start shooting left. So on this night, 23rd of December, about 2 in the morning, coming in Southern Baghdad, I got hit from a peak aim, so 7, 6, 2 by 5, 4 in the back of my plate. Yeah, that was the first time that night. Was your driver dead? No, no, no, no. So he literally, the rounds went between us and he's just floored it and he's on the radio drive-through, drive-through, drive-through and he was a really, really experienced. He had done the previous year at Fallouzha. He was a Blackwater contractor, so he was really, really, really experienced guy, ex-10th group guy. And then, so once we got the rounds, and I've got it photo, but literally, you just see the strafe up the side of the truck, but then he's kept driving and then I started returning fire, but what had actually happened is the, when the rounds went up, the gunner hit the deck and just wouldn't get up. So when, and we couldn't get him on the comms and looked around and he was just lying on the bottom of the truck, but obviously we're engaging out targets and getting out our gun on. And then I got hit and literally got slammed into the door. Yeah, it was like being hit with a sledgehammer. It was, yeah, kind of a regroup, but then we, you know, drive-through, drive-through, we got through that ambush and then we pulled into the back part of buy-up, which was called Camp Phoenix, which was an OGA base and then had to get under lights to check the vehicles and everyone out, because we still had to get down route Irish to get back to the green zone. So, and at that point, I knew I'd been hit, but didn't know where it was. And, you know, we had a medic who was an ex-18 Delta, best medic I've ever worked with, quick, you know, feel I'm not bleeding, am I okay, can you breathe yet, senses? All right. So, and at that stage, route Irish was the most dangerous road on earth. And that's the road from Bagdad Airport into the green zone. So we got back about maybe 3.30 in the morning and it wasn't until I was taking everything off that I saw, you know, literally the round mist hit the corner of the plate. So another inch and a half higher or wider. And, you know, it's how it didn't penetrate as it was. And I think what we worked out was because I was leaning over it skimmed. So even the fact that it hit and skimmed it, like, yeah, you know, being left and shooting that way that just that we kind of assessed saved me for if I was a bit more upright or a little bit to the, to the left, it could have skimmed and, but that was what we came in our AAR. Another guy in the rear vehicle, he copped a, would have been two direct hits, but the armor saved that and he copped a round in the front plate. So they weren't mucking around. Yes. And what about these, these WMDs? What's your views on that? So do you think that, say, we in Britain, we were under the threat of being kind of annihilated in, I think in the intelligence that they were putting through the mainstream media, it was, there was a figure. I guess some, some will put this in the comments, but it's like, you're all going to die in your beds in 45 minutes, I think it was. That was the basis on what Tony Blair took us into that. Yeah, I've got to be, I've got a lot of prior or pre-knowledge now because that was my SME in my later military career. But going back to then, I didn't even think about WMD to be honest. We didn't carry any mop gear on us, didn't have rebreathers, none of the military were carrying them. And, you know, I've done a fair bit of research into, obviously the US government created a, found a photo of Zakawe in Kandahar at an al-Qaeda base with Asama bin Laden Zawahiri. And they used that photo to say that Zakawe is in the top echelon of al-Qaeda and at that time he had a camp in Bakuba in Iraq. And there was reporting that they were trying to make some crude chemical weapons at that camp. So if you go back to watch the Colin Powell presentation at the UN to justify the WMD, that's what he did. And, you know, that's when he first mentioned Zakawe. But at that point Zakawe was no one and he put him on the map to the point the actual photo they used was and it's bin Laden, it's in these papers. These guys are no one and they didn't like him because they used to call him the green man because he had a lot of tattoos and from his time in Jordan. And yeah, as Zawahiri said he wasn't pure. So they actually paid him off and it was the Americans that elevated him to the status that he wound up getting. But no one ever, I never had any threats or got any briefs of WMD. And I know that the second target that SEAL Team 6 hit in Iraq in 03 was supposed to be the biggest southern chemical weapons site and it turned out to be a nursery. Yeah, I'm just kind of highlighting that. But when I went back into Iraq in the counter-ISIS mission in 2014 and 15, Iraq had previously had a nuclear weapons program and did have state-run Republican Guard chemical weapons sites. So they were at certain times prior to 2001. They did have state-backed WMD programs. However, the world was aware of that prior to 2001 and they weren't active in 2001. But ISIS did try rejuvenating some of those programs when they had the calorific. Do you think like George Bushan is, we can call them neocons, do you think that they had the world's best interests at heart when they... There's actually some very good documentaries and books about this now. It was all, you know, Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld wanting to finish the business. And to a lot of points in their favour in some ways, Saddam brought it on himself. If you remember, back then there were no fly zones and he wouldn't let the inspectors in. So he was kind of baiting them anyway. And I just don't think, because he got away with it in 1991, I just don't think he thought that they would have ever invaded the way they did. I think he misrepresented the feeling within the Cheney-Rumsfeld camp in, you know, but even in it's well documented now, Afghan was, you know, two months old when they were already having meetings about pre-invasion plans for Iraq. Are you familiar with Skull and Bones? Yeah. You mentioned George Bush going up against John Kerry and of course both Bonesmen, aren't they? Yeah. I'll never forget, because I'm now fascinated in US politics and I was really naive back then, but because I was essentially working for the US government and the State Department and they were really panicking about if Kerry won, of how liberal and left he was. And John Kerry, he was ahead by quite a margin about two weeks out and then he gave a press conference where he said that he views the war on drugs to be a greater threat to Americans than terrorism. And about four days later Osama bin Laden comes out with a recording saying that he's going to continue to attack Americans. And then George Bush wins the election a week later. They were funny, weren't they? Those Osama videos because he kind of looked different in every one. Yeah. And I think what's put a lot of the conspiracy to better around that is and it's only just been released the bin Laden papers where you know, it's obviously all the stuff that the seals found in a Butterbug and a female, I forget her name, but a female academic who spent years translating them from Arabic to English and that has just released a book about it. But she talks about that they were his recordings and his thought process and he was at the time of his death, he was actively trying to get our coder to conduct another sophisticated attack within America. The really interesting thing for me was it was actually his daughters that were writing a lot of his messaging towards the end and that's not very common or well known that women have such an active role within those Sunni Salafi organizations. Is that the Afghanistan end for him or the American end? Because the intelligence that come out of Afghanistan was that he died in the Tora Bora caves? No, no, he died in the Butterbug. So this is a bit of a scoop and this is a true story and it is online in many places. During the battle of Operation Anaconda Tora Bora, an Australian SAS sniper team had a guy in their sights tall beard walking stick with a PSD and they got on the radio for permission to shoot and they were denied and they had to give the location and while they didn't take the shot and there was no BDA they and I know the sniper very well he's convinced that they had a summer bin Laden in their sights and because they were Australian they weren't given permission to take the shot. And it's an interesting one isn't it because of the study that the University of Fairbanks, Alaska are you familiar with the study they did? Not really, no. We got to be careful what we say in the podcast because of some of the platforms we broadcast on, can we say? No they did a fascinating study into let's just say events in a certain US city that may or may not have been about 20 years ago, I'm not saying anything. I'd encourage anyone to kind of have a look at it because they kind of prove categorically that the model of is one particular event actually the model that NIST NIST if I remember right is it the National Institute of Safety and Technology Science and Technology Science and Technology I think they brought a model out after these events like I say may or may not have taken place 20 years ago and the University of Fairbanks Alaska went that's just that. So I do in my current consulting role I do a lot of terrors and lectures and volunteering lectures and stuff and one of the thing that fascinates me with 9-11 is it was actually and at the trial of the that tried blowing the two towers up first they drove a truck into the basement full of explosives and detonated it and at that trial they actually got a structural engineer expert in and he's basically said the only way you can take the towers down is by this way and that's exactly what they did so yeah we like I say we can't talk too much about it but basically just for the sake of the podcast and your position as an analyst you you go with the let's call it the official the official narrative yeah yeah yeah yeah and the reason I'm saying this Shane is that's kind of like your that's your like blueprint is it worth for where where you are now in your your career I mean you're called the terrorist hunter and I know every I know so many people just hearing that word again and say but one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist so that's exactly what I do now for a job is is pull that apart and literally interview convicted a violent extremist terrorist and write reports on their ideology for for court and legal matter so and in one of the presentations I do that I'll actually I'll send you after this that's my third slide is exactly that is you know and and the example I use is in the 19 late 70s early 80s we're our freedom fighters and in you know the 2010s the they were out the Taliban in our terrorists so that's something that on a daily basis that I continue to study and unpack and reach out to as many quote-unquote experts whether they be practitioners whether they be military whether they be shacks whether they be academics whoever to continue to pull apart and understand that very nuance because until we do and I'm a firm believer in CV we've got to stop it before it happens we've got to understand what puts a young man or people on a path to want to join those organizations or conduct those sorts of attacks and unless we understand all of the the bits around it we're never going to solve that problem are you familiar Shane with for example Kazarian mafia yeah briefly Sabati and Frank is cult these kind of yeah I've been to some conferences where they've discussed that and it's the relevancy between a cult and a terrorist organization and yeah audiologies and stuff yeah you mentioned Mujahideen so ferocious fighters bloody well worth reading up on there's a great book it's called the bear claw the bear trap I think it's called the bear trap it's written by an Afghani if that's the right an Afghanistan person really great it was all about the fight against the Russians after the what was it Russian invasion occupation military operation isn't that what they use well yeah let's save that for another day later but yeah this was such a great such a great book it talked an awful lot about Pakistani intelligence what's their abbreviation is it the ISI ISI yeah that's a big feature in this book there was so much I didn't encourage anyone to read it there was so much about the psychology of the Mujahideen fighter why they fought the way they did you know why they didn't favor like we do say troop attacks and you know hold the objective and all this kind of they're hit and run bug out they had to be prepared to you know get an arm shot off and then be put on the back of a mule and transported for 18 days to the nearest hospital it's just in you know this was their mentality it was like yeah you know God willing it was but that was that was the Russians and in that war the US funded the Mujahideen because of the cold the Cold War scenario and then moving on it flip-flopped if that's the right way to use that expression you guys don't say flip-flopped you say thongs don't you yes yeah yeah yeah so in 2010 and 13 you know I spent pretty much seven months of every year in Afghanistan as a that was a lot of my job was going out to those villages and understanding the tribal dynamics and understanding the threat picture the enemy picture you know sources and all sorts of things and you know where we were in Aruzgan was like I said you know before is where Mullah Omar was born and his family lived in Aruzgan Mullah Baraita the current military leader of the Taliban is from Aruzgan and so was Hamid Karzai who was the president of Afghanistan at the time so the tribal dynamics were really fascinating and you know essentially it was the center of gravity for the where the Taliban started so a lot of the the village elders in that I spoke to even if they weren't active Taliban fighters they were Taliban sympathizers I guess it would be like talking to a German in Berlin in 1943 you know they might be an infantryman in the army but they're still a member of the Nazi party so and a lot of people might realise that the word Taliban is actually student which is why all their commanders are Mullah which is teachers and started as a Mullah Omar was a religious teacher and then when the Russians left and the civil war really started inside Afghanistan his students his Taliban rose up with weapons and started in Kandahar and breached into Aruzgan and Helmand and essentially took control of the company but so that was the evolution and a lot of places that we went in Shahwali cotton Kazaruzgan was that rat line that the United States used to use to bring those Stinger missiles and that in the 80s and you know we went into a compound in Langer and now this is open source and I can send you some photos but you know we found Stinger missiles that were traced back in a compound that was essentially a Taliban logistics node and you know we would find an old cave system that was an old musha had in the hospital and you know I was in a village up in Chora Valley called color color and I was at a Shura so I'm meeting with the village elders and one of them told one of the young kids to go and get something and he come back with essentially a British 303 a Balazan from the British Army when they were there in 1898 or something and he was telling me the story of how that rifle and he said they came over there with their red coats and me I love history so I'm just lapping all this history and the other thing I worked at a liaised at a place the Afghan it was called the ACCPU officer coordination province and it was the Afghan army and police and you know their intelligence service NDS and all that and some of them were Russian trained and you could see the Colonel Colonel Birgit in his uniform very clean very rigid very militaristic was an ex artillery officer could go to the board and read a 10 figure grid reference and I remember talking to him and he goes oh I know you know I went and received training in Moscow in 1979 and but then you also had others so the chief of police at that stage was a guy named McTulah Khan who was a local tribal warlord he's intelligence guy was one of my close associates and he would give you the lay out he was 60 years old and they were old Mujahideen fighters that fought against the Russians so you essentially had guy Afghans locals that fought for the Russians and fought against the Russians now part of the Afghan army fighting the Taliban in the province that they've grown up in so it's it was very convoluted when you're pulling it apart are they Popozo tribe, are they Durrani, are they Hazarin, what is their tribal feud so there was such a complex operating environment that you really had to take two steps back and not get in their way because all indigenous cultures want to educate orally and they just want to tell their stories so a lot of people especially one of our major partners in those battle spaces would start talking or over talk them where I would just in an hour conversation there were times I might say 20 words and you know they were talking because Tehran Khot Airford started as a Russian airbase and the history and the explaining what was that famous saying you might wear a watch but we understand time we've got the time and that's exactly what they did play the long game and they understand they would watch our our electric countermeasures for counter-IDs on the vehicles they didn't understand the technology but they knew quite a what it did so you'd see little boys 6-7 years old with a mobile phone and they would walk up to vehicles and soon as the phone would get scrambled they'd put their hand up and they were learning the bubble how far out of the vehicle and so they would work out that okay so our CIDs don't work in there but we can make an RC a command wire so the RC part would go to this point and then there would be a command wire to a pressure plate on the road and they worked out how we entered a compound so they would put pressure plate IEDs in doorways they watched everything we did so then we had to watch what we did I wasn't part of a special operations task group for Australia we had 20 rotations every rotation had to change our TTPs because they were watching what we were doing and they were countering their TTPs to catch us out so then we had to evolve to not get caught out and catch them out it was such an evolutionary cat and mouse and then you had to realise they've been doing this since the 70s and I don't think that sort of a fence and really it was the USADA and the CIA that taught them a lot of their unconventional warfare if you've watched the movie Charlie Wilson's War that's a true story the CIA and a guy named Mike Vickers and got in there and taught them how to use these weapons and how to make them effective and hit and run and those tactics that you were talking about before so I think Iraq's the same not many people would know America funded Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war because America didn't like Iran so I find all that fascinating and that's what really led me down the path of becoming an intelligence analyst because I'm not sure if you're aware but it was Britain that sold Saddam weapons I think of the chemical variety that he used against the Kurds yes allegedly I don't know I wasn't there and I don't believe mainstream media but that's what these videos are these yeah well there's videos in 9-11 as well so what was I going to say yes so basically I've got the world kind of most if I can use the word non-offensively peasant army that are actually like the best soldiers in the world and not only that after 50 years of battering the Russians battering the coalition forces they've now actually acquired a lot of equipment yeah oh and why did we go in in the first place a lot of our viewers would be too young to realise this we went in because they had the t-word training camps yeah right well what have they got now they've got all the equipment to go they've got not just the most high-tech fighting equipment now but that was the stuff that we went in to stop them allegedly to stop them having what a fiasco a war what is it what is it good for so and this is coming out in in and it's already out in a few books and it's coming out in the book but it's about to be released in November 2001 the CIA had a meeting with Mullah Omar and he was on the verge of making a peace deal with the Americans and the Taliban the al-Qaeda found out and they actually attacked the meeting which is the meeting that Ahmad Qaza had to be extracted from so you know that was two months into the war two months after 9-11 the Taliban were looking to for peace terms and so it could be over before it began yes and I wonder who funds al-Qaeda because they certainly had a lot of money in kit didn't they all those brand new toyota pickups coming from the most impoverished country in the world or arguably one of the most there's a lot of unknowns there Shane aren't there I think that it's not so much the unknowns anymore I just think that people don't want to believe the amount of corruption that went on the agendas that people had the geopolitical agendas but you know even the al-Qaeda scientists that started the Pakistani government's nuclear program hmm you know that every time I say that to some people and they just look at me and go that's just not true at all if you google it's on Wikipedia you know I've written papers on the guy but it was literally an al-Qaeda scientist that helped the Pakistani government create their nuclear state funded program has Australia got nigs no no we're signed to the nuclear treaty we're not allowed to we're legally technically not even supposed to understand the technology into a nuclear bomb what's the reason behind that then for a I think the government way back when just didn't want to get involved even though we're one of the biggest producers of uranium globally and I think that because of our ANZS treaty and the Five Eyes and that we actually don't need it we've got America and the UK with that so you know those partnerships and you know like the recent submarine deal where they got rid of the French they should never have been to the French but you know people saying it's a new alliance with the UK and the US forever we always will like it's for a start when you join the Australian Army you swear allegiance to the queen so we're always going to be hand in glove with the Commonwealth British forces and we're in lockstep with the US so when the US has got so many strategic tactical nuclear weapons in some ways it's not required for Australia to have them I'm not suggesting they should by the way I'm just curious as to how that came about and then I also think just after World War II there was a lot of nuclear testing done in South Australia by the British government and the amount of damage to the population and there's video again you see the detonator nuclear bomb and then they march troops into the and stuff that I think that scared the government of the day off but yeah they signed a lot of treaties, new entreaties that we're not going to not even have weapons but just not even understand it the technology that goes there but we've got a nuclear reactor for medicine in Sydney and obviously the new submarines we're going to purchase are going to be nuclear powered and I'm a big fan of nuclear energy I think that we should have you know not that I'm an environmentalist anyway but we should have nuclear power I just think it's easy and especially the amount of rain we have and it's more sustainable and better for the environment yes that's again probably a topic for another day isn't it where do you start with that one I guess the I mean we've I live in a naval city we've literally if you go down to the dockyard there's rows of nuclear submarines tied up alongside like bullets in a magazine and they're it's because the half life of the uranium or whatever it is they use on these things and no folks I don't pretend I get a hold my hand up don't understand much of it but basically that you know the radio activity of them goes on for so long and so it's almost like I don't think they know what to do with them historically I think some countries just ditch them at the bottom of the sea and that's they have done with you know all that toxic waste just from the sea so I'm just saying I guess there's you know there's different views on all these sorts of things yeah and I guess we could really go down some rabbit holes talking about the global warming challenges and stuff which I'd like to keep my or out of some of that hypocrisy but I just think from a sustainability and technology current technology perspective I just think nuclear energies much more beneficial than coal fire and other forms yeah I've kind of got this theory that we've got to devolve perhaps we've got to go back to bushcraft you know the second you start taking iron ore or tin ore out of a rock that's when it all went wrong because it's the stuff you couldn't put back isn't it it's a whole of you know there's a lot of northern Australia that's been mined for that exact thing that's such a it's Australia it's the continent it's the largest continent largest island and largest country I think I don't think it's a largest country but I think it's largest island and it's the only continent with a single country but I think Russia might well if you maybe turn around I think Russia is bigger yeah but we're the biggest island and we're also I think the only continent with one country yeah incredible and it's what incredible country you have so they call it God's country don't they yes they do it's the biggest thing you find when you leave Australia and especially like I am you know you go to Europe and you you drive two hours and you're going through two or three countries where that's you know you drive through just one state in Australia and it can take you two days just how vast and you gotta remember unlike America and England there is nothing in the middle of Australia so most of our population lives down the east coast and you've probably got you know three fifths on the east coast and one fifth on the west coast and the other fifth spread out in the middle and yeah it's just crocodiles cows and kangaroos and really good neighbors well not anymore they just shot the last episode you guys didn't want it anymore Harold Bishop is gone yep yeah yeah the channel 4 in UK didn't want to renew anymore and so they've literally just shot the last episode it is in August I think they were saying neighbors is over I had heard through the grapevine that my days of habitually watching neighbors I think ended about 1987 just before just before I joined the Marines funny enough and then the other one was home in a way Shane tell us can you give us a sort of synopsis of what you're doing now how I know you're advising a lot of people on a lot of things yeah so like I said in the last pretty much from 2010 to 16 I was predominantly focused on the Middle East as a lead intelligence analyst so you know I went back into Iraq in 14 as for the counter ISIS mission but also you know I do a lot of interviewing of you know prisoners and detainees and locals and stuff so then as I was transitioning out of defence but the body just had enough I had to have some shoulder surgeries and stuff and one of my old commanding officers was actually the counter terrorism director for the office of police in Sydney and he said that the Department of Justice was just starting a new CVE team and I'm like hell is CVE he goes countering violent extremism and I'm like what's that and he's like it's kind of like before terrorism and I was like he goes well they are a senior intelligence analyst and I was like oh yep you know it's a lot of liaising with government agencies and all the stuff that I've done so I started there and you know so it was essentially under our legislation you have cohorts or three different cohorts there's those that have been charged with a terrorism offence so I would or will interview them to find out do they like you know they might be yelling aloo akbar but you know do they understand ISIS so the Abaya and you know really pull apart their understanding of terrorism and that and some mental health aspects then there's those that have been convicted of a of a terrorism-related offence and a due for sentencing and rehabilitation you know how deeply entrenched are they in the Islamic state or our Qaeda's ideology and if so recommend you know they might need some a shake to come in once a week and talk with them or really what got them into that path of violent extremism so and I worked a lot with juvenile so you know what made this 16 year old start getting online and downloading ISIS clips and then the third one is we have a scheme in Australia could continue detention where you know you might have been convicted of a terrorism-related offence and been given eight years and you've served that and your parole periods up but I might get asked to conduct an assessment to determine whether that person still has those hold that ideology and then you know my report will go to the Minister for Home Affairs who if he or she deems that there's still a threat will then petition to the Supreme Court to make a continued detention order so that person stays in jail essentially and so then there's more intervention training and courses done and that gets reviewed every year for three years and then they go back before the judge to see if they still have this they still believe because the government obviously doesn't want to release an offender who you know just because they did 10 years in jail they're still hard called jihadi and as soon as they get out they'll try to conduct a terrorism operation so that's kind of what I do now and you know and I do some other consulting and some podcasts or speak to some academics journalists about terrorism and you know our cadre and the evolution of where we're at there's a lot of Australian women and children in the camps in Syria so I'm doing some work in that space to try to determine if they are sympathizers or followers of the Islamic State or if not you say Australian citizens change you mean people that have gone over there to fight so some mainly the women so they did they just follow their husband over who fought or did they travel over and married a Islamic State fighter and then they've had a child or children and so those children you know are those children Australian citizens because their mothers got an Australian passport and then there's if you remember last month or maybe the month before there was a prison attack in Syria where Islamic State were trying to attack and free all those prisoners the actual detainee who got on the phone and rang people was an Australian 17-odd Australian boy and so why is he in Jail in Syria is he being convicted of anything or is he just a juvenile and so I'm doing a bit of work and awareness in that space to look at the government and NGO side of the house and you know without terrorism legislation you know have they been assessed to be a sympathiser or loyal to Islamic State or Al Qaeda or whoever it is if not are they just a genuine refugee and you know should they be repatriated home and if so how does that look and what intervention work and other work goes into doing that process and I'm pretty passionate about that too to be honest seeing things that we've seen in our careers but I think that's an environment for any kid a young child to be to be you know subject to or be around so I'm pretty passionate about that yeah so and another big one is knowledge transfer you know I've 20 years of being in and around the Middle East and violent extreme terrorist groups I've got a lot of you know knowledge corporate knowledge understanding that I want to pass on or pass to the next group of analysts that are going to you know take because these groups aren't going anywhere and you know now we're looking at domestic terrorism and because of the internet and telegram and that because someone would have to leave Australia or the UK and travel to one of those training camps we spoke about earlier with these days they just log online like we're doing now and they conduct training and radicalization and that in their homes and a lot of that took place during COVID so you know it's working with you know different NGOs and agencies to how do we combat that what narratives and what counter narratives can we do to try to bring and I'm really focused on the youth bring those youth back into the fold yes I'm a youth worker so I'm well qualified youth worker so I'm all young people and my passion my concern shame would be I hate to use the term American foreign policy simply because I say probably on a daily basis on my channel American politicians do not control American foreign policy now that we know that it goes much higher even higher than the bankers and the maniac trillionaires so I say that because I love Americans I think they're the greatest people on earth I've met I've had the pleasure of meeting hundreds especially you know traveling in my time in the forces and I and I don't think they're at all usually really humble people I don't think they're at all to blame for the wrongs in the world or the wrongdoings but I think that they're very badly led by some credibly evil greedy people and the reason I say this Shane is like if someone and I'm just creating a scenario it doesn't matter whether it's true or not because it's if a person believes it such as reality yes you know but if somebody fabricated evidence or at least a good part of it invaded my country bombed it flat it was in the stone age but now they bombed it even more back into the stone age massacred my family my children my partner and my cousins you know also that certain people can make an awful lot of of money I think I'd like to be on their side so you'd be having to you know deprogram me and I think that would happen so that's literally the nexus of where my life is at the moment is the self reflection of that naive young 28 year old that went to Iraq looking for an adventure to falling in love with Iraq in the Middle East and really really and then you know going to Afghanistan and falling in love with the country the culture the history of the people so I 100% understand that taken so a lot of what I do now and I guess that's why I've really gone all in on the CVE because it's to understand that exact problem set do you blame that person who is essentially defending their homeland but at the same time that doesn't that's not who the guys who you know bomb the Arana Grande concert are that's not who the guys that stabbed people that's not who the nice attackers were so again that's what I do now is treat every individual and every case on that individuals basis you know are they a refugee who came like one of the young kids I worked with he was 17 he grew up in in our door in Baghdad which is you know reconnected over that because I did a lot of work in our door in 05 you know every day there were car bombs going off and stuff so he was a young kid then and then his mum got a job with the UN and got him out of Iraq into Syria and then as a 12, 13, 14 year old he was right in the middle of the Syrian Arab rising and then the breakdown of Syria until his mum got a refugee visa to come to Australia and then you know they landed they didn't speak English at the time they were given an interpreter for two weeks and pretty much left on their own and then he got into some trouble and that's when I ran into him and started working with him like how do you blame this kid look at the trauma the childhood trauma that he experienced not just once but twice you know in Iraq when Iraq was at its ugliest point in 0506 to then going to Syria to being when a Syria essentially imploded so that's where my new passion lies is to not treat him as everyone else's or this or that is to understand who he is and his journey and then assist him with ways to help him with that trauma and to live a productive life as an adult so a lot of the youth and young people that I work with that's how I approach each individual don't take anything that anyone said about them and just sit and have those conversations and pull apart who that person is and their journey, their story which always leads you to why they've acted the way they've acted or are they after status are they just trying to fit into a group what are their motivations for doing that so are you familiar with the concept of false flag operations in your I know what my experience is is a commando but I'm guessing you in fact you might even have no doubt you got more experience than me but you mentioned some things there in in Europe Shane I'm not going to say I can't say specifics because this will be the last chat that I ever have on the internet but in your opinion if you were to go up to a police officer and shoot them at point blank range with a Kalashnikov in the head what would happen to their body as in the police officer or the shooter if I was lying on the ground and you came up to me literally 6 to 12 inches from this thing I would say from my experience that there wouldn't be much left of oh yeah no of course there just wouldn't really be much left of it I'm thinking smashing pumpkins comes to mind because I've got to be careful what I say I'm only pointing out mate that I've watched every single bit of footage I can on some of the things you've mentioned and we need to be fucking careful when we're being slipped to Mechie yeah yeah yeah and obviously a big part of my last role in government was obviously those organisations have magazines and was identifying where the rubber hits the road so there was one famous incident where some locals in the UK actually built some IEDs they learnt how to do that out of a magazine and the actual title was how to make a Bominium Mums Kitchen so it was to really pull that apart and how viable that was and like you said was that designed at getting those young kids to do something to the left so everyone's looking here whether they're true intention or true motivations to the right or who's actually releasing those perfect English perfect directions you know we used to break that down to you could tell through the pattern of English and stuff the nationality of the writer was that someone who was educated in the west or someone who was educated in the middle east so we did a lot of work in what you're alluding to of I did a lot of work in that space and there's a lot of work being done to understand that because one thing that ISIS and Al Qaeda did around 2007-08-09 10 is really recruit heavily in UK and US universities for engineers and you know you're a larky so you could be very very fluent in English and could converse really well to get a message across so you had some genuine true believers like that and you had others who took advantage of that to get their message out if that makes sense without getting too much detail Shane in the UK we've got 42,000 I'm just going to say people of a certain faith and I'm making no judgment here folks I live in paradise so you make of that what you will but 42,000 on the military intelligence watch list 42,000 people that's approximately I believe I'm not that good at maths but we're talking about 2% of the adult male population which is a significant that means for every 100 people you see in Sainsbury's Tesco's that guy at the meat counter and that guy who's just checking out are both on a government watch list yeah so someone who really works in that space and I guess this is where my background helps me where others don't have it because I've lived in those Middle Eastern countries and assimilated really heavily into those cultures and you know their ethnicities I don't have an issue with some of being a very devout in their religion where the issue is from both morally, and legally is the ability or their use of violence so if they believe that violence is permitted to further their ideology that's my that's the issue and that's what we really need to understand and that's not very well articulated across the board so a lot of people freak out at what they don't understand and so a lot of what I do now is educate you know you know they don't understand what certain festivals are what certain religious holidays are outside of their own and that breeds fear in itself people fear what they don't know so I think one of the things that I do is actually help educate because that's what I'm all about you know one of my favourite sayings is it's not that I don't know something it's that I haven't learnt it yet and I'm still learning every day and I'm still seeking out people who haven't reached that I haven't got yet and I'll ask a thousand questions but that's not the issue is the violence you know and when I'm in correctional facilities and I'm conducting these interviews that's what I'm really focused on what made you think it was okay to use violence to get those group or that person or you know whatever but what makes you believe that violence was why couldn't you stand there and preach and put your views across verbally rather than physically or violently and yeah so have you said this to George Bush? Tony Blair mate so I just wanted to clarify it sounded like I'm vilifying you know a certain community that's not my point my point was we've got an open door immigration policy in the UK if you want to come here you're just hopping a rubber dingy across the channel when you literally get put up in a a lot of the four star hotels are booked out Shane because they're for illegal immigrants and I've travelled the world I we go the other way probably a bit of a hypocrite and no I don't blame anyone for seeking a better life but the point I'm making is that 42,000 when certain foreign policy still keeps insisting on this bombing countries into rubble it's just you know gonna be a recipe you know I think we should start practicing pieces I agree and I agree and I think we have learnt so if you look the way we went into Afghanistan we went into Iraq in O1, O2, O3, O4 but then if you look at the way we dealt with ISIS it was very low key it was special operations focused initially then it was training teams that was advisor sister company and I was one of the first coalition soldiers in Baghdad in 2014 the emphasis from the outset was to train and empower the Iraqi military government and so by that way they never had to put 60,000 troops in there it was always train and then advisor be one tactical leap behind the Iraqis but empower them to literally to do you out of a job and so I think we've really learnt from the mistakes of the past hopefully to now and you look in Africa and you look in some other countries we're having greater effect with a tenth of the force because we're actually you know what's that expression catch someone a fish feed them for a day, teach someone a fish feed them for life because we're spending and I mean we collectively spending more of the focus on training the local population both at a military, at a criminal security and a governmental level that they're now taking the fight on where you know I agree we're 20 years ago we we went tanks you know what they call it the thunder up to Baghdad and literally leveled it like that like a bedrock so I think where we say the west of learning but we both know and you know you've just got to look at what's going on in some of the places in the world they're still the evil out there so you why you don't want to go in and shock and all at the same time you actually can't stand back and do nothing and I think that makes sense Shane tell us about your book mate yeah so when does it come out so I'm sure because it's just at the printer at the publications now hopefully next three months ish and it's still got a working title because the working title wasn't the publishing company weren't that enthusiastic about it so we're still can you tell us what that was or what it was well so I left it as we should have known better but that didn't get a start but it's yeah the flavour of the book is basically it's mine and a few other guys' journeys from 9-11 right through to what the war in Afghanistan cost us from mental health and broken marriages and stuff being by political decisions from both senior military leaders and senior government and who do we hold accountable for those decisions in the long run and you know for example you join the army you go to recruit school for three months and then you go and do the infantry training and you know you do selection courses into all this high speed training that might take three or four years to then go to war and essentially you get discharged at the wave of a pen they don't remain you to come back into civilian life they don't take the time to do that and whose fault is that and why they're blaming soldiers for things that may or may not have happened in the Foggle war what about the politicians and the senior leaders that got us there or made those decisions where is their accountability so that's kind of the gist of the book from a lot of books being written looking at say politics and a lot of ex soldiers writing their memoirs and this is putting them both together going and the interviews were interviewing former prime minister saying if you could speak to that soldier who did six trips and you know has had a failed marriage and has been to a mental health facility what would you say to him and you know if you knew how that was going to end would have altered your decisions like that so it's Shane just for our friends watching because obviously this podcast will be up hopefully forever what do you think the title will be so they can so I I have no idea to be honest but I will actually get you that information after this yeah yeah no problem and just one last thing because we didn't talk about this but there was a big uproar wasn't there internationally after the videos of the Australian special forces in particular the SAS came out and some of the behaviour again I don't judge it war is horrible folks if you think like there's rules in this then you yes there are to a point but to think that it always stays within those rules I think is a little bit naive you know when you've got young men and they've had it just can say put into them that this is the enemy and and you're taking hits and your buddies are going home in body bags it just and I'm making no yeah it changes the situation it changes the situation we all have the propensity for extreme acts and I think we saw in some of those videos some stuff that was just you know ratifies what I've just said what was the the reaction in Australia so I guess upfront you know that was always deployed as part of that organisation during those times so I'm very familiar with it every five eyes soft the US the UK the New Zealand everyone's kind of been through a similar thing and I think that anyone can manipulate a video for it to show what they want with a bit of clickbait there for example the role process is pretty complex as far as a lot of people can't understand or don't understand that within the rules of engagement and laws of armed combat if the insurgent was on the the joint priority effects list they were you know they could be shot and that's essentially what a lot of those videos were with some of those videos what you don't see is in Afghanistan you would have a very sophisticated spotter network so they would have guys at elevated positions with icon radios and they would essentially be battlefield tracking both convention forces and their guys so they would say you know they've done the radio saying three quetilof going and then they would move one of their PKM teams into a position in order to engage them so under the rules of engagement those spotters were fair targets and what you don't see in some of those videos is you know a handheld radio is the size of the phone and they may have dropped it in the dirt and that 30 second clip that takes to the media because they've been disgruntled for whatever reason doesn't show the two hour lead up to that point I'll say now it's come out and it's in an open forum that there's a lot of jealousy to some of the Australian context which sounds absurd but there's around honours and awards who got what medals at what time and there's some journalist with some access to grind you know there's but what hurt me and it cost me personally relationships with my family and stuff was when the prime minister come out and call us all war criminals before an investigation or charges have been laid you know instead of coming out saying rather than giving this report we're going to do a thorough investigation and at that point if any charges will be laid need to be laid against individuals will do that he just blanketly called you know the 700 of us who deployed as part of an SOTG war criminals and we got given a unit accommodation medal and they wanted to strip the whole 20 rotations of that medal where some of the guys who died their families came out and said well my son's buried with his he can dig his grave up and take it off him so it should have been handled a lot better by our former prime minister and our chief of army because you know I've had a lot of friends that have suffered a lot of mental health issues because and it happened to me daddy are you a murderer daddy I've been charged with a crime I haven't been before a court but the prime minister of the country just came out in a news conference and said I was a war criminal yeah yeah but you know but on the balance we also have to point out that these things do happen and that's you know otherwise it sounds like every every service person is an angel and like I I never met an angel in my time I met no I agree and this I think everyone has been a combat has done or seen something that you know combat by nature questions your own morality but at the same time there is a legal process there are rules of engagement there is laws of armed conflict and if there's an allegation made against me you any soldier in any conflict zone you should be given the right for that allegation to be served upon you and you be proved innocent until found guilty and given your day in court and in our context that hasn't happened it was just a blanket everyone's guilty we're going to take medals off you and anyone who's served as part of our organization in Afghanistan is a war criminal now if down the track if these investigators do find that some of those guys did commit war crimes will then so be it you know but at least be given that allegation to that individual even you know no matter who it is but at least be given that allegation you have been it's been alleged that you did this at this time and date and then you know you can either plead guilty or not guilty and have a day in court and you know what I mean let it let you process play out and I know in our case that hasn't happened yes my god almost hung out to dry I suppose is the expression like you know like I said the Prime Minister of Australia at a former Prime Minister of Australia at a news conference that went live on all news channels literally anyone who served in Afghanistan as part of the Special Operations Task Group is a war criminal these politicians oh my god have you seen the one they got in New Zealand bloody hell they are they're very very sick people very unbalanced very power crazy very manipulated it's I don't know why people keep voting you know I've never voted in my life I don't understand why anyone would want this kind of weird class ruling over them yeah she destroyed his dealing with covid ah god yes ah let's not go there because Shane listen mate I've really enjoyed this chat we've covered it an awful lot of stuff to be honest I hadn't thought about for a long time like you know that book I read on Afghanistan that was brought back a lot of sort of memories so I wish you the best of luck certainly with your young people quite exciting to have a book out so I'll be in touch with that release date and title is that your first book yeah yeah it'll be my introduction to the literally world and yeah if you want to make a go of it write another book very very quickly after it and then write another one that's how you have to do this yeah you know that's it's about especially in the current context is what we're just discussing it's also about dipping your tone but especially when you've lived a lot of your career behind the green door it's what you can say and as things started now it's been 10 years and things have been declassified I'm a bit more free to talk about my experiences in the war in terror Matt wish you all the best with it thank you to our friends at home big love to you all as always thank you for tuning into another episode of the bought the t-shirt podcast Shane and I have covered a lot of areas sometimes my personal take on life we got council culture now haven't we and we get this on the podcast Shane we get people people like literally write to me because I you know we're a podcast we welcome all guests you know I think that's how you learn about life how you learn about perspectives and motivations and this kind of stuff so I just want to say guys you know don't be throwing the baby out with the bath water with all this council culture sometimes you have to listen to stuff that you maybe don't agree with or you don't particularly like in order to formulate your own balanced opinion going forward in life so having said that I'll say thank you to Shane again and if you could like and subscribe that would be wonderful and we'll see you next time thank you take care Chris you too mate