IN OCTOBER 2010 Australia’s Director of Military Prosecutions, Brigadier Lyn McDade, brought charges against three Australian soldiers, resulting from an incident in which six people were killed – one Taliban insurgent, but also four children and a teenager.

Australia’s most famous talk radio presenter, Alan Jones, led a vociferous campaign against the prosecutions: ‘The government should revoke the powers of this woman, and these charges should be withdrawn…Join the campaign to stop the prosecution of our troops doing what we sent them to do.’ Jones frequently and vehemently denigrated the prosecutor, noting she had never been in combat or commanded troops in combat, quoting one listener who said McDade was trying ‘to big-note herself; she has no idea’. Jones believes that the parliament should respond to the national anger about ‘the obscenity of charging these people’.