Two men. Both lived at the same time. Both did the same thing on the same night, at the same place. Everything they did was the same. One man changed the history of the world. The other man was hardly even noticed, just for the record, his name was William Dawes. That will mean nothing to you – and that is the whole point of this programme. What was it that they did differently from each other that produced such a startlingly different outcome. You need to know, because what they did, and how they went about doing it can totally change your life. The world we live in today is still a radically different world because of the other guy.

Tag words: William Dawes; Paul Revere; HMS Boyne; John Hancock; Samuel Adams; Lexington; General Thomas Gage; Thomas Hutchison; Lord Dartmouth; Dr Joseph Warren; American Revolution; Tipping Point; Malcolm Gladwell; A Connector; Roger Horchow; Masonic Lodge; Boston Tea Party; a Maven;

On 12 November 2020 Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, announced that a 4½ year enquiry had revealed allegations of war crimes said to have been committed by some members of the Australian Defence Forces serving in Afghanistan. Scott Morrison “warned the nation to prepare for allegations of “serious and possibly criminal conduct” by Australia’s defence force in Afghanistan that could see soldiers prosecuted for unlawful killings.

General Angus Campbell, Chief of the Defence Force, soon after this news release said that he would write to the Governor-General asking him to revoke the Meritorious Unit Citation for special forces soldiers who served in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2013. On 23 November he issued a further press release showing that many members of the SAS Regiment had been issued “show cause” notices about why they shouldn’t be sacked” – remarkably before any decision had been made on whether a crime had been committed.

It was back in March 2016, when General Angus Campbell was the Chief of the Army, caused Major-General Paul Brereton (a sitting judge of the New South Wales Supreme Court – never a combat soldier as far as I am aware – judges never have to have actually done the thing that is being heard by them) to be appointed to head up an enquiry into allegations of war crimes against some Australian Special Air Services soldiers.

The allegations are that there were 39 murders of prisoners and civilians and the cruel treatment of two others by members of the Australian Special Air Services regiment during tours of duty in Afghanistan in the periods between 2005 to 2016.

Although the top brass in the Army have been quick to “tut tut” this alleged behaviour by the men they command, they need to look to the standard set by the victorious Allies at the end of World War 2 regarding the responsibility of commanding officers for the conduct of the men they command. The Standard that they can’t walk past was the one set in the trial of General Yamashita, the Japanese commander of  the 14th Army in the Philippines in 1944 when large scale killings of civilians, especially in Manilla took place. The standard is disarmingly simple and I have to say I wonder why some of the commanders of our forces in Afghanistan at the relevant times are smugly taking pot shots at the men they were commanding and not contemplating the gravity of their own positions.

Tag words: Australian SAS; Australian Defence Personnel; war crimes; Scott Morrison; Taliban; Afghanistan; General Angus Campbell; Chief of the Defence Force; SAS Regiment; Major-General Paul Brereton; judge of the New South Wales Supreme Court; Australian Special Air Services; General Yamashita; Joint Task Force 633; Distinguished Service Cross; Lieutenant-General David Morrison; Tiger of Malaysia; Shobu Group; Shimbu Group; Colonel Harry E Clark Snr; International Criminal Court; S.L.A. Marshall; Men Against Fire; SAS Captain Mark Wales; Sergeant Matthew Locke; Mark Mathieson; Albert Einstein; Return to Australia Psychological Screening; The Age; the Sydney Morning Herald; Kerry Stokes; Seven West Media; Victoria Cross; Medal for Gallantry; Australian War Memorial; Janet Albrechtsen; Ben Roberts-Smith;

A story has broken concerning allegations of Australian Defence Personnel having been involved in war crimes. In the present age it seems that more often than not that an allegation is treated as if it was the sames as a conviction, only without a trial.

While that’s acceptable, and normal, in socialist regimes like Communist China and North Korea, the former Soviet Union, it has never been the way things are done in this country.

 A person’s reputation is a precious thing. It is easily lost. The reputation of one of Australia’s most important institutions, the Australian Defence Forces is also easily lost when hasty and ill-informed allegations are made as if they’re the findings of a court of law.

 It’s to Australia’s credit that it raises the issues of these allegations publicly. In 1940 the socialist regime of the Soviet Union butchered 22,000 Polish officers in the Katyn Woods in Poland and spent the next years, after the massacre was uncovered by the Germans in 1943, trying to shift the blame onto the Germans. All of the bodies were riddled with bullets from Russian weapons and overwhelming evidence, no longer disputed, showed that this was a Communist slaughter.

So let’s look at the allegations that have now been made against the Australian Defence Forces with a cool head, applying the principle of the Anglo-Saxon legal process that a person is innocent of a crime until proven guilty in a court of law.

Tag words: Australian SAS; Australian Defence Personnel; war crimes; Communist China; North Korea; Soviet Union; Katyn Woods; Andrei Vyshinksy; UN Human Rights Committee; Governor-General David Hurley; Defence Chief Angus Campbell; Meritorious Unit Citation; ABC; Australian Broadcasting Commission; War and Peace; Leo Tolstoy; Pierre Bezukhov; Clive James; World War 2; Corporal Patrick Hennessey; panzerfaust; ADF Lance Corporal Andrew Gordon; Darwash; Hekmatullah; Improvised Explosive Devices; IED; Fury; Brad Pitt; General William Tecumseh Sherman; Andrew Hastie; Peter Smith; Quadrant magazine; Taliban; Afghanistan;

This Danger Zone programme’s about how a Russian double agent, Colonel Oleg Gordievsky, fled the Soviet Union using only a plastic Safeways shopping bag and a Mars Bar.

And how an American spy got that old South American feeling – I Yi Yi Yi – and married his dream Latino woman, of very expensive tastes and needs, so he became a Russian spy to give her the lifestyle that she needed and that he couldn’t afford on his CIA salary - and because of him at least 10 men died.

Tag words: World War III; Ronald Reagan; KGB; MI6; CIA; Cold War; NATO; Oleg Gordievsky; Margaret Thatcher; Ben MacIntrye; The Spy and the Traitor; Safeways; Mars bar; PIMLICO; Aldrich Ames; Rosario Casas Dupuy; TICKLE; Nieman Marcus department store; Chuvakhin; Joe and Mos’s restaurant; K Directorate; Viktor Chebrikov; Vladimir Kryuchkov; Colonel Viktor Budanov; Aeroflot; Arthur Gee; Kit Kat; Charles Powell; Caroline Ascot;

In 1982/1983 the world stood at one minute before midnight. Russia was ready to launch an all-out first nuclear strike against the West – because, wrongly, they knew that America was about to launch a surprise nuclear attack on them. How the hell was the world going to avoid this! The key player to avoid this apocalypse was a Russian double-agent - Colonel Oleg Gordievsky.

Tag words: World War III; Stanley Kubrick; Vera Lynn; Dr Strangelove; Ronald Reagan; National Association of Evangelicals; Soviet Union; Warsaw Pact; Pershing II; Strategic Defence Initiative; Star Wars: KGB; MI6; CIA; Cold War; NATO; Oleg Gordievsky; Marxism-Leninism; Korean Airlines Flight 007; Kamchatka Peninsula; ABLE ARCHER 83; Operation Ryan; SS-20 inter-mediate ballistic nuclear weapons; Inter Continental Ballistic silos; Cuban missile crisis; The Day After; Pentagon; Margaret Thatcher; Bud McFarlane; John Keegan; Intelligence in War; Ben MacIntrye; Yuri Andropov; Konstantin Chernenko; Karl Marx; Das Kapital; Great Patriotic War; Adolf Hitler; Safeways; Mars bar;

This programme’s about the man who has undoubtedly been the greatest spy in the history of the world. Every one of you listening right now owes your life to him. If it wasn’t for him World War III would definitely have happened. No “”ifs” or “buts” – the Third World War would definitely have happened and civilisation would have ended.

A lot of people know about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. That was nothing. The only reason that the world was saved in 1983 was thanks to this Russian spy. In this program I’m going to tell you what he did – and what difference it made.

Tag words: World War III; Third World War; Cuban missile crisis; Russian spy; Yuri Andropov; Leonid Brezhnev; Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party; Soviet Union; non-Aggression Pact; Joseph Stalin; Adolf Hitler; Nazi Soviet Pact; World War 2; Nazi Germany; MAD; Mutually Assured Destruction; KGB; D-Day; Imre Nagy; Margaret Thatcher; President Reagan; Afghanistan; Vietnam; East Germany; Berlin Wall; Cuba; Great Patriotic War; Operation Ryan; first nuclear strike; President Bush; Prime Minister Tony Blair; Saddam Hussein; Colonel Oleg Gordievsky; NKVD; Prague Spring; MI6; Archbishop of Canterbury; Red Cross; The Spy and the Traitor; Ben MacIntrye;

It’s been said that “no other band … is as synonymous with the words party and good times than the B-52’s. Their infectious music is layered with dance grooves galore, that frankly just makes your body move, and has been in high gear for the past 35 years”.

Athens Georgia is a university town - the University of Georgia. Athens Georgia is located just 70 kilometres from Atlanta, the capital of Georgia. It all started for the B-52s in October 1976. After having drinks at a Chinese restaurant a group of people, Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland, Cindy Wilson and Ricky Wilson, decided to form a band. They called it the B-52’s because of the bouffant hairstyles that Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson wore at the time. Their hairstyles, popular at the time, looked like the nose cone of a B-52 bomber – which is what that hairstyle was called.

The B-52s played their first gig at a friend’s place on Valentine’s Day, 1977. By 1992 the band was coming to the end of its road as a main stream popular band at the fore front of the music world, but even today they continue to tour.

This Danger Zone programme’s about the plane that the B-52 group took their name from, an American strategic bomber that first went onto the drawing board in 1948. This bomber, the B-52 stratofortress, is scheduled to remain in service until 2060. It will be over 100 years old, if it retires then. I guess that’s why is has the Jurassic Park sounding nick name – the Stratosaurus.

Tag words: B-52 stratofortress; Stratosaurus; B-52s; Fred Schneider; Kate Pierson; Keith Strickland; Cindy Wilson; Ricky Wilson; Cold War; United States Air Force; Colonel Pete Warden; Pratt & Whitney; B-29; BUFF; Big Fat Ugly Fella; Strategic Air Command; Soviet Union; Stanley Kubrick; Dr Strangelove; Bikini Atoll; Vietnam War; Ho Chi Minh Trail; North Vietnam; Khmer Rouge; Memphis Belle; B-17 bomber; Diamond Lil; Operation Linebacker II; Mig21; Albert Moore; The High and the Mighty One; Balls 8; NASA; X-15; Joint Direct Attack Munitions; Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles; B-21 Raider; B-1B Lancer bomber; hypersonic missiles; South China Seas; Communist Chinese; International Court of Justice; Anderson Air Force; If you want peace, you have to prepare for war;

Nothing much surprises me today but this did. You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you. There are people out there who are against electricity, modern medicine, hospital, worldwide telecommunications – almost instantaneous (like Skype, Facetime, Zoom – all of that stuff), international travel, cars, highways, plentiful food with virtually no famines, television, live streaming - I could go on and on and on but I think you get the point.

And these people are trying to convert you, yes you, into agreeing with them. They’re a bit sneaky about it – well the smart ones. The dumb ones are too dumb to know their being had by the smart ones – things never change.

If it wasn’t for this thing, that they’re complaining about and telling you was terrible, you wouldn’t be living in the modern world. What is this thing. Well I’ll tell you.

Tag words: Colonialism; racist; right to self-determination; empires; God; Charles Darwin; evolution; Christianity; Adolf Hitler; Jesus Christ; Casesar; Star Wars; Hollywood; Roman Empire; Constantinople; Istanbul; Western Empire; Byzantine empire; Seljuk Turks; British Empire; Christian evangelical empire; World War II; Assyrians; Babylonians; Persians; Greeks; Alexander the Great; Alexander’s successors; Ptolemaic Empire; Antionchus Philadelphius; Septuagint; Hebrew; Yuval Noah Harari; Sapiens; King David; Dacia; Monty Python; Life of Brian; Cicero; Seneca; St Augustine I; Haydn; Mozart; Zulus; Cyrus the Great; Nebuchadnezzar; Trajan; Hadrian; Marcus Aurelius; Australian aboriginals; Geoffrey Blainey; Western Front; World War I; Governor Philip; First Fleet;

This is the final episode in the story of the man who the ANZAC’s Revered – Fighting Mac.

Mel Gibson told the story of Desmond Doss – the Seventh Day Adventist who refused to kill, was rejected by the men in his platoon and by the Army but at the Battle of Okinawa, on one day, 5th May 1945, saved the lives of 75 men.

This story is about a man who risked his life for 2½ years in the bloodiest fighting from being with the Australians at Gallipoli and then on the Western Front in Europe. A man whose repeated acts of bravery and selfless devotion to the men of the ANZAC, earned him their undying respect, and the undying respect of their families and loved ones back in Australia until the day that he died on 26 July 1947.

He was a man mobbed wherever he went when he returned to Australia from World War I. A man who was invited to give one of the three eulogies for the famous General John Monash after his funeral, with the first eulogy being delivered by Sir Harry Chauvel – commander of the legendary Australian Light Horse. After the war he was the guest of honour at many ANZAC Day services. At the end of those services it was not uncommon for his hands to be bleeding from shaking so many hands. So many hands desperate to touch his.

Yet today no statues of this man stand for the modern haters of the left to tear down – maybe that’s a good thing. What isn’t a good thing, is that this remarkable man, who makes the heroism of Desmond Doss, told in Mel Gibson’s movie, “Hacksaw Ridge” pale into insignificance, is almost totally forgotten – a fate that reflects poorly on us all.

God bless the Salvos - the Salvation Army.

Tag words: William McKenzie; Fighting Mac; ANZACs; Mel Gibson; Desmond Doss; Seventh Day Adventist; Battle of Okinawa; Western Front; General John Monash; Sir Harry Chauvel; Australian Light Horse; Hacksaw Ridge; Salvation Army Chaplain; Commissioner Hay; Salvation Army Commissioner Henry Howard; ANZAC Padré; Edward; Prince of Wales; King George V; Digger Prince; Chiang Kai-Shek; Mao Zedong; General George Carpenter; Salvation Army Brigadier Arthur McIlveen; Chinese Academy of Social Sciences;

William “Fighting Mac” McKenzie is the most famous man of the ANZACs of World War I that you’ve never heard of. When he returned to Australia in early 1918 he was mobbed wherever he went, by the veterans who had come home, by the families and friends of ANZACs who he had helped – by writing to them about the deaths and the circumstances of the deaths of their loved ones, by helping distribute thousands of letters and parcels from Australia to our boys, his “Lonely Soldier” campaign, and most importantly of all, for what I am going to talk about in today’s programme about Fighting Mac, by lifting up the dead bodies of our fallen, often in the middle of No-Mans Land, and burying them in that place and for the whole time he did this he was in great danger of death or maiming himself.

To many of the people who were so desperate to shake his hand when he got home, the reason they were desperate to shake his hand was because his hands was the last human contact that their loved one’s lifeless body had, Mac digging a grave for him and then gently lifting the man’s body into the grave to bury him with a Christian burial service:

Forasmuch as it has pleased Almighty God, in his great mercy, to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed. We therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile body that it may be like unto His glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to Himself.

Fighting Mac was a Salvation Army chaplain with the AIF. He was the man the ANZACs revered. Do you know how difficult it would have been to have been so respected, venerated, by these men?

God Bless the Salvos. The Salvation Army.

Tag words: William McKenzie; Fighting Mac; ANZACs; World War I; Lonely Soldier campaign; No-Mans Land; God Bless the Salvos; Lieutenant-Colonel Thompson; Battle of Lone Pine; Gallipoli; Daniel Reynaud; The Man the ANZACs Revered; Battle of Pozieres; Captain Walter Stack; Commissioner Hay; Mouquet Farm; Salvation Army; War Cry; Proverbs 16:27; Benjamin Franklin; General Birdwood; Poperinghe; Combat Stress Fatigue; Lieutenant Colonel McKay; Sunshine Song;