Nigeria, May 16 -- Sometimes, it's best not to leave the issue of justice to the judges. They do what they must: consult the statutes, test the rivers of power, and hope that their ruling will not be subject to appeal. David McBride, the man who revealed that Australia's special forces in Afghanistan had dimmed and muddied before exhaustion, committed atrocities and faced a compromised chain of command, was condemned on May 14 to a prison term of five years and eight months.

Without McBride's feats, there would have been no Afghan Files published by the ABC.The Brereton Inquiry, established to investigate alleged war crimes, would most likely have never been launched. (That notable document subsequently identified 39 instances of alleged...