Certainly not condoning the actions of a few but it pales into insignificance when compared with the (alleged) number of civilians slaughtered by the Taliban.

Maybe if the Australian public weren't so mollycoddled and shielded like children these sorts of stories wouldn't have as much propaganda value to those who'd seek to undermine us.

ttbn, yes suspicion is definitely warranted. We've seen Chinese money buying loyalties of late. Dumb clumsiness and blind fear of bad press is just as dangerous.

ateday' yes indeed the alleged excesses of our troops pale in comparison to the exploits of their foes. Exploits our totally non partisan presstitute media never seem to see.

Mr James Gaynor, CSC

Here is another of the class we have little need for, to be put against the double brick wall at the Saturday local football match, and shot.

Traitorous low life!

Dan

Yes, you wouldn't think fair dinkum "Aussies" would do that sort of thing, killing the locals in cold blood. Never mind that our Frontier Wars lasted 140 years.

You won't see anything about the Frontier Wars at our AWM. But they do have a fantastic Australians-in-Afghanistan fairy story.

You mean holier than thou Australians behaving badly ? Nah !

According to Binoy Kampmark

1. 500 civilians were killed in Vietnamese village
"The killing of some 500 unarmed women, children and elderly men in the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai on March 16, 1968 by soldiers of the US Americal Division"

2. 11 Afghani civilians were killed across Afghanistan by the SAS apparently as part of "blooding".

"It is also accurate to claim that Australian government officials were unaware of the enthusiastic, and sometimes incompetently murderous activities of the SAS in the country. On May 17, 2002, Australian special troops were responsible for the deaths of at least 11 Afghan civilians. They had been misidentified as al-Qaeda members. The defence minister at the time, Robert Hill, told journalist Brian Toohey via fax that the special forces had "well-defined personnel identification matrices" including "tactical behaviour", weapons and equipment. These suggested the slain were not "local Afghan people." This turned out to be nonsense: the dead were from Afghan tribes opposed to the Taliban."

Answer-

500 in one village is not the same as 11 across the whole of a country in wartime- it seems the author is conflating two different situations.

Given that part of the SAS's role is to shoot to kill and to engage in reconnaissance and close quarters sentry disposal (stab a sentry in the neck) often in very dangerous conditions where they are vastly outnumbered and out armed it is important that they are able to do it quickly, professionally, and quietly. This means that unfortunately they have to have some experience killing. Killing doesn't come naturally. This is the paradox of the military and the police- in order to have peace sometimes there is a need for violence and sometimes killing. That's why there needs to be constraint as to how the elite forces are used and when they are to be deployed. Politicians have to realise that when they allow elite forces to be used there are risks.