A Tale of Three Atrocities: Revisiting the Brereton Report

In 2020, the Australian Defence Force publicly released the “Report of the Inquiry into Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan” (the “Brereton Report”). Among other disturbing revelations, the report corroborated credible allegations of prisoner abuse in which new members of Australia’s elite Special Air Services Regiment (SASR) were ordered to execute prisoners to achieve their first kills, a practice known as “blooding.” Mistreatment of prisoners, while morally abhorrent, is hardly puzzling. Personality profiles that suggest a propensity for abusive behavior are represented in any large population, including an army. Furthermore, war incites destructive passions that can overwhelm moral judgment, regardless of a soldier’s character. Nevertheless, we find the alleged actions in the Brereton Report puzzling. Those who serve in Australia's SASR are assessed and selected not only for physical toughness and soldiering skills but also for character traits that should militate against such atrocities. Rather than treating the practice of blooding as a simple case of prisoner abuse, we analyze the crime as three separate but mutually dependent offenses: the order to execute a prisoner, the decision to obey, and the silence of the onlookers. Our deconstruction suggests three distinct causal patterns that warrant different approaches to remediation .