Not surprised even one bit. Elite combat unit culture in Australia and many other countries glorifies, idolises and celebrates death and killing and being killers. They think they're gangster. They have rituals and a strong culture that promotes "alpha" mentality and they quite literally see themselves as better than everyone else. They want to kill, they take trophies, they celebrate it all. They see it as a warrior culture. They love the narrative of the Spartans and Vikings because of this warrior culture.
Sure, there may be few good apples who don't. Most do. The guys from his specific squadron of SASR knew all about it and loved it. They literally had parties were they drank from the prosthetic limbs of their "enemies". And that's probably the most tame and decent out of all the dodgy shit they've done. They think it's cool and they absolutely hate the fact that lawyers and people are criticising them. A large section of the Australian public do as well. I personally heard people defend the straight up execution of unarmed people in Afghanistan because "mate you weren't there".
The whistleblowers were, as far as I'm aware, exclusively support staff. Doctors. Technicians. Etc. This is because these people weren't fully brainwashed into the culture and still had a sense of basic human decency about them. The SASR operators themself knew this. There is leaked audio where one operator says to the other "mate you can't kill civilians Infront of the support staff". To be fair, the other operator does say "mate you can't do it in front of ANYONE". Maybe he was one of the good apples...
The ability to storm an enemy outpost and kill men does not make you morally upstanding. It makes you brave. It makes you a capable warrior. Sure. This is undeniable. But it does not make you a good person. This seems like common sense but large amounts of the Aussie public don't realise this.
It is what it is. Our government enabled the whole thing. I dunno how you can ask these elite soldiers to do what they do and then turn around and be surprised when they act the way they do. Blood is on everyone's hands. You watch, the government will throw these guys out to the dogs and call them UNAUSTRALIAN and we will all convientently forget that our soldiers should never have been helicoptering into rural Afghan villages to assassinate people to begin with.
Fuck the government. Fuck war. Fuck every cunt except the people who live in peace and treat each other with kindness.
Sorry for the rant.