A former Australian soldier who served in Afghanistan has been lauded for his fiery tirade over the arrest of former comrade Ben Roberts-Smith.

The former SAS soldier and Victoria Cross recipient, 47, will spend at least the next eight days in custody at Sydney's Silverwater Jail after he was charged with one count of directly committing murder as a war crime, one count of jointly commissioning a murder, and three counts of aiding, abetting, counselling, or procuring murder.

The maximum penalty for the charges is life imprisonment.

Roberts-Smith is accused of murdering unarmed civilians while deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012, as well as allegedly ordering members of his unit to kill three others.

It followed his dramatic arrest by Australian Federal Police officers at Sydney Domestic Airport after arriving on a flight from Brisbane on Tuesday, in front of his teenage twin daughters.

Former Australian Defence Force paratrooper Sam Bamford unleashed a scathing attack on the federal government and AFP on his 2 Worlds Collide podcast.

He also slammed the $318million allocated over the past decade to the Office of the Special Investigator and Australian Federal Police by the government to investigate war crime allegations.

'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,' a fired-up Bamford began.

'The government doesn't get to send us into a war zone, where the enemy blend in with the general public and go unseen.'

Then aged in his early 20s, Bamford served six months in Afghanistan, where three mates were shot dead by Taliban soldiers who had infiltrated the Afghan army working alongside the ADF on August 29, 2012. 

Private Robert Poate, Sapper James Martin and Lance Corporal Rick Milosevic were killed in cold blood by a Taliban sleeper agent.

Bamford recalled how Roberts-Smith and his team were the first responders to fly in to make the scene safe.

'You don't get the right to spend $300million over the past decade to send the AFP to Afghanistan to go on a witch hunt,' he continued.

'If you want to sit there and say we should have done X, Y, and Z, go  f***ing spend a day fighting in a war.

'Go spend a day fighting against an enemy which uses women and children as human shields.

'Go fight a day in a war where they get 13-year-old boys and strap 15kg of explosives to them to blow them sky high.

'Go fight a day of that!' 

Bamford ended the podcast by urging viewers to share their thoughts.

High-profile figures were among the thousands of viewers who lauded Bamford for speaking out.

'Well said mate,' Big Bash League cricketer Chris Lynn wrote.

Broadcaster Lucy Zelic added: 'Every. Single. Word. Of. This. We salute you, Sam.'

It comes as John Howard became the second former prime minister to weigh in on the case.

'To some Australians, Roberts-Smith is the modern personification of the great Anzac tradition,' Howard told The Australian.

'Fundamental to the operation of the rule of law is that no man or woman is above or beyond its reach.'

'This is a difficult issue for many, as it tests to the limits not only our respect for Australian values, but the deep and special reverence we have for those who put their lives on the line to keep us safe.'