People who face death in was or any other military engagement should have aright to be assessed and tried where and when necessary by a court or tribunal from the`ir own brethren in arms. If they are willing to offer us their lives to defend us and our interests th3en who are we to decide their fate in and under conditions that we can never properly understand or appreciate.
Ir seems to me that we want to enjoy a protection that we in turn are unwilling to accord them, we have the temerity to want to hold their lives in our hands. Those who want to aply the normal rules of so-called natural law should be prepared to enter the same environment and under the same conditions, shoulder to shoulder with our men, to sit in judgement.

I guarantee that this self-righteous and more han pious lot of hypocrites, usually self-seeking lawyers and those of questionable equivalent but just as vociferous,from the safety that our soldiers provide, these doe-eyed, limp wristed protectors are passionate about the human rights of those who want to kill us more than fight for the rights of the front-line rights of those who only want to protect us.
These brave men and women seem to have the right to die or endure capture not for their protection but our protection. What a lot of hypocrites the human rights industry are.

socratease

" If they are willing to offer us their lives to defend us and our interests ..."

In case you haven't noticed, they aren't defending us, they are attacking and provoking a country and a people on the other side of the world who never attacked nor offered to attack us, killing babies, children, teenagers, dogs, goats, goatherds, and blowing up bridal parties, and who are getting paid to do it.

The idea that they should be immune to do this, or should be tried by their 'brethren in arms' who can be expected to be partial is nothing but the old idea of rights of conquest which should have no place in the modern world.

If your love of the Australian state leads you to support the idea of Australian troops shooting babies and children and being immune from question or impartial discipline, you should review your love of the Australian state.

More to the point, we should be demanding immediate withdrawal of all Australian troops from this disgraceful, illegal and utterly vain war.

If these soldiers did nothing wrong, as they assert, then they have nothing to fear from the court as they will be found innocent. Surely a better outcome than ongoing suspicion and subsequent damage to their reputations.
There is a question that needs to be answered and if it is not, then we can only presume cover up and crimes against innocent civilians.

I am glad Australia does not tolerate any illegal behavior by our troops given the self inflicted mess of torture and mistreatment the seppoes stand accused of. No one says Australian troops are gunhappy morons out on a turkey shoot. Our soldiers are well respected as professionals and this court case shows that we value life and try as hard as possible to prevent any unnecessary deaths.
We should be proud that we have proper rules of engagement and are prepared to enforce them.

Peter Hume I share your position entirely. Australia should not be in Afghanistan helping America to further its blatant, bloody imperialism and to hear successions of our politicans trying to justify our involvement there is sickening!

Bring on the debate on Afghanistan, I say and subject all our troops to continual rigorous scrutiny. We know from the war crimes committed by Americans just what having unbridled power does to soldiers.

http://www.dangerouscreation.com

I find it appalling all the people who do not think our soldiers should be held to account if they recklessly kill civilians. That would put us on a par with nations such as Israel, and I for one don't want Australia to be placed in the same basket as them.
We should not be sending our soldiers to kill Afghans, who have done nothing to us. But if we do we must insist on them being very careful not to kill innocent people, especially children. When you kick in someone's door in the dead of night in a place as dangerous as Afghanistan, it would not be unreasonable to expect the householder to mistake you for bandits and fire on you. This is the case whether or not the householder is Taliban. In a country where most woman have 8 or 10 children, you would also expect that throwing a grenade into the house is going to result in children being killed.
If the soldiers had good grounds to believe they were dealing with Taliban militants then I am sure they will be found not guilty. If they were simply reckless with the lives of innocent people, then they must be held to account.

We should not be in Afghanistan,Iraq,Pakistan nor threatening Iran.
Even if you believe all the Osama Bin Laden BS ( ie the man with the fat and skinny nose who has multiple faces),nearly all these so called terrorists came from Saudi Arabia not Afghanistan.

Hamid Karzi the Pres of Afghanistan used to work for UNOCAL the oil company building the pipeline from Turkismenistan through his country,Pakistan then to the Capsian Sea.This is the most economically viable route.

When the Taliban had control in 2000,there was a heroine drought.Now under the auspices of the US Military it produces 90% of the World's heroine worth an est $50 billion pa.

So who are the real terrorists?