A host of patriotic political commentators have come out in support of revered soldier Ben Roberts-Smith after he was charged with alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.
Roberts-Smith, 47, a former Special Air Service Regiment corporal and Victoria Cross recipient, was arrested at Sydney Airport on Tuesday morning and refused bail to face court on Wednesday on five counts of “war crime – murder”.
The charges, which came after a years-long witch-hunt that cost taxpayers about $320 million, enraged patriotic Australians, united right-wing voices on social media against the government’s treatment of the war hero, and sparked praise for One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.
“They Send Us to War… Then Judge Us When We Come Home”.
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— 2 Worlds Collide Podcast (@2worldsPodcast) April 7, 2026
Afghanistan combat veteran and 2 Worlds Collide Podcast host Sam Bamford, who served at the same time as Roberts-Smith, addressed the charges in a scathing video titled “They Send Us to War… Then Judge Us When We Come Home”.
“The government doesn’t get to send Australia’s best, most courageous men within our society to go fight in a foreign conflict and then judge us when we get home for what happened over there,” he said.
“The government doesn’t get to send us into a war zone where the enemy blend in with the general population and go unseen. You don’t get to send us into a war zone where they use IEDs, and women and children as human shields, you don’t get to send us into a war zone where they strapped 13kg worth of explosives to 14-year-old boys and blow them sky high – it happened on my trip.
“You don’t get to send us into a war zone, on the 29th of August, where they get Taliban soldiers to infiltrate the Afghan National Army, which partnered with the Australian Defence Force over there, and then turn around and shoot my mates, killed three in one night.
“You don’t get to send us into war zone, and then judge us when for what happened over there, when we get home. And guess who was the first responder on the 29th of August? That’s right, Ben Roberts-Smith and his team were the first ones to fly in and make the scene safe.”
Conservative influencer Big Chocky, who has almost 520,000 followers on Instagram, unleashed at the government for spending $318 million on investigations into alleged war crimes for just two arrests and no convictions, and said “I stand with BRS”.
“BRS is Australia’s most decorated soldier, and this is how we’re going to treat him? I don’t see any officers getting in trouble, I don’t see any higher-ups in front of a chopping block, no, of course, it’s only the operator,” he said.
“Because that’s the way it works here in Australia – the small fry gets dicked. This country is going backwards at a speed of knots, and this is a clear sign of that.”
Former National Socialist Network leader Thomas Sewell made a lengthy video on Telegram, titled “Ben Roberts-Smith is a war hero”, highlighting his heroism in storming two Taliban machine gun positions to help save his pinned down patrol.
Tom Sewell on Iraq, Afghanistan, RoE, war, and Ben Roberts Smith.
“The traitor always tears down the strong man. The traitor always tears down the honourable man. Ben Roberts Smith is an honourable man.” pic.twitter.com/6k7w1Z3IY3
— Martin Featherstone (@MartinFeathers2) April 7, 2026
“Ben Roberts-Smith and the SAS, their job was to go out there and find these guys and kill them, that’s what their job was, that’s what they were ordered to do,” he said.
“They talk about unarmed guys getting shot, okay, when you write down your little fake bullshit rules of war, so like, ‘you get to shoot at me, and then you just get to drop your rifle and run away and hide in your village’, these guys were getting tracked down by the SAS and they were getting slotted, and that’s the reality of it, and no Australian has any sympathy for it.
“We know that Afghanistan was a dirty war, it was a very dirty war, it was guerrilla warfare, and the way you fight guerrilla warfare is you hunt down the enemy and kill them, whether they are holding a rifle or whether they aren’t holding a rifle.
He went on to say say those who were prosecuting Ben Roberts-Smith were “operating for the enemy, and that’s what the traitor always does”, saying they were trying to tear down a strong and honourable man.
“He didn’t start the war, the culprits behind, especially the Iraq War, these people aren’t in jail, these people aren’t being charged with war crimes. The politicians aren’t being jailed for what they’ve done, but we’ve gone after the guy who we asked, we selected him to be in the sick c*nt unit, goes down and hunts down the enemy and kills them, and we’re mad that he hunted down and killed them? I’m not,” he said.
“What did you expect to happen when you put special forces soldiers in a foreign country, and they’re getting bombed, and they hunt down and find the bombmakers, do you think they are going to have a polite conversation with them?”
“And they is why we’ve got to get rid of, there’s a whole rhetoric, people calling him a sociopath and people attacking his character, this is the most anti-Australian, anti-male bullshit that could exist. He’s a fucking hero.”
The Australian government just arrested our most decorated veteran from the Afghanistan War for alleged war crimes.
Ben Roberts-Smith was awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia after singlehandedly storming two Taliban machine gun positions by himself in order to save his… pic.twitter.com/P3RqA4T1Pp
— Drew Pavlou
(@DrewPavlou) April 7, 2026
Anti-communist activist Drew Pavlou spoke out about the arrest in a popular post on X which he ended with the statement “free Ben Roberts-Smith”.
“Ben Roberts-Smith was awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia after singlehandedly storming two Taliban machine gun positions by himself in order to save his own SAS team. And this is how we repay him,” he wrote.
“I spoke to an Australian Afghan war veteran who told me that the Australian government literally paid for billboards in Afghanistan offering to pay random Afghans to come forward with war crime allegations. What country on Earth would do this to itself?
“Tell me: When does the Taliban plan on holding war crimes tribunals into their own people? When do the Taliban plan on holding themselves accountable for terrorism?
“Absolutely retarded to purge your own men when fighting a brutal barbaric enemy that respects no rules whatsoever. We are a cucked nation.”
I was bearish when I said 30% ONP primary by tax time. I’m now all in on 36% by Spring Carnival. https://t.co/K4DdE2XLxo
— John Macgowan (@john_macgowan) April 7, 2026
Nationalist activist Blair Cottrell also weighed in on the arrests, writing on his Telegram channel that what was important was not Ben Roberts-Smith’s guilt or innocence, but “the ripple effect” on Australian society and the military.
“A respected Australian icon representing our nationality and Aussie military might becomes tainted by images of cruel and senseless murder,” he wrote.
“Australian soldiers are thought to lag each other (even special forces) and end up feeling like they can’t trust their own comrades anymore.
“Young Australian men have even less motivation to join the army than before.
“If I were an enemy trying to weaken Australia from within, I would be pushing hard for this investigation to continue and as publicly as possible.”
Commentator John Macgowan said he believed Ms Hanson’s immediate expression of support of Ben Roberts-Smith would boost her party further in the polls.
“I was bearish when I said 30% ONP primary by tax time. I’m now all in on 36% by Spring Carnival,” he wrote on X.
Roberts-Smith was refused bail after being charged and will face a bail court on Wednesday.
He faces life imprisonment if found guilty.
Header image: Left, Roberts-Smith being arrested (AFP). Right, Sam Bamford (X).
The post Patriotic commentators rally behind Ben-Roberts Smith after war crimes charges first appeared on The Noticer.
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