Small number of bad apples ROTTENATTHEHEAD
LET us not forget that less than half of 1 percent of the elite forces are supposed to have done the wrong thing. (Not proven ). Less than 0.5 percent.
The other 99.5 per cent, who have fought in sh.. holes, risked their lives, given their all and forgone a normal family life in our country are not only innocent but ready to guard our country, with their lives. How grateful is our nation to that 99.5 percent?
The pious, elitist, self-righteous armchair experts with2 0x 20 vision in hindsight pass judgment without trial. Where are command, and the politicians, who sent them repeatedly into Afghanistan? I’ m sad that the modern Australian way seems to be hang the majority for the perceived crime sofa few.
Long may the S AS continue on their journey of keeping Australia safe. They are the most noble of warriors humanity produces. They are thereto protect us Australians. Tough as nails, fear less and ready to protect ... always.
They always have had and always will have my utmost respect.
Anthony Griggs
Pa lana, Flinders Island
FINALLY, someone has had the guts to mention George W. Bush, John Howard and Tony Blair as the main reasons we are in the mess that we are in at the moment.
Australians and the Yanks have been in two wars that we could not win but we have lost a lot of men and women to find out, and Australia has been left in a mess, overcrowded with immigrants. Government is a joke you cannot name a decent politician in the whole of Australia.
Bill Hand bury, you wrote a wonderful article in this paper. Well done, sir, for naming Howard. For the actions of the former Australian prime minister are as bad as what our chaps in the battlefield have been charged with.
Victor Barr
Glenorchy
KILL, KILL, KILL
“KILL, kill, kill,” the instructor will bellow at the recruits and send them screaming with bayoneted rifles to stab bags of hay suspended before them, or lying supine on the ground. No wonder young soldiers learn to kill, kill, kill their perceived enemy. But where they overact and commit murder is another thing. Shameful, criminal, yes, but best handled within the military system rather than civilian courts.
R.J. Giddings
Pontville
AFGHAN ANGER
THERE has been a lot of public outcry concerning the alleged war crimes committed by a small number of Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan.
Yet there was no outcry or public out rage when the Taliban terrorist who killed three Australian soldiers back in 2012 was released from prison this year along with 400 other Taliban terrorists, all involved in high-profile terror acts. Hekmatullah was serving as a sergeant with the Afghan Army working with Coalition forces when he turned his weapon on Australian soldiers, killing three and wounding others. He was due to be executed for his crime by the Afghan government but, under a deal brokered by the US government and the Taliban, was released.
Those 400 hard-core Taliban terrorists were allowed free and would have promptly gone back to their reign of terror. There has been lots of sympathy for those Afghans killed in these alleged war crimes, but spare a thought for the families of the three Australian soldiers killed by a so-called friendly who is now free to continue terrorism.
Alan Leitch
Austins Ferry
AN ABOMINATION
MERCURY readers’ thoughts on the alleged war crimes by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan call for serious contemplation. There seems little doubt that crimes have occurred, but I believe that these men have been found guilty after trial by media.
No one knows for sure what the evidence will reveal at their actual trials. One sure fact. War is an abomination and those who we send to fight them are subject to psychological and physiological stresses far beyond the experience of most of us. Reader Sue Carlyon writes that our troops killed North Vietnamese civilian men, women and children. That is not true. Australian soldiers fought guerillas, (the tenacious Vietcong) and North Vietnamese regular troops in battle on South Vietnamese soil. Thousands of civilians were killed in US air attacks on North Vietnam. Vietnam paid dearly.
Mercifully, after the barbarity of war, peace has long since prevailed
Bill Perry
Kingston
WA RIS HELL
AS we all know, war is hell, and hellish things happen in war. So when are the enemies going to be investigated and individuals punished for committing crime son or near the battlefield?
Surely our troops need protection, not persecution, for matters that took place in a war. Information has to be gathered without wasting precious time, as the enemy won’ t wait. Or is it a case of“Sorry, he, or she, shouldn’ t have done this, but if he, or she, hadn’t done this, they would not now be dead ”?
There is a difference between battlefield or combat incidents, and what happened in the Holocaust in WWII. Our citizens need our protection, and hopefully, the people looking into what happened will take this into account.
Bruce Reynolds
Lindisfarne