There is a sad symmetry to the fact that on
this day – September 11 – two of the three soldiers murdered by a turncoat Afghan infiltrator
in Australian ranks, are buried.
It is the 11th anniversary of
the 9/11 attacks in the United States, attacks which sparked the War on Terror,
a major component of which was the invasion and continuing presence of the
western allies in Afghanistan. It was that presence which led diggers
Milosevic, Poate and sapper James Martin to be in Afghanistan on August 29 last, when they were
gunned down in a cowardly barracks attack by one of the Afghan’s they were helping train
to defend his own country.
When men go to war, they and their families
know the risks involved – it is a stoic history over the generations of our
nationhood. But treachery adds a bitter element of base betrayal to the deaths
of these three of men. There is no hierarchy of valor when a digger dies while
on active duty, but there are many – I am among them – who feel particularly
frustrated and angry on this occasion.
Bentley is also of a like mind, and he
penned this eloquent summation of the plight in which the Aussies – indeed all
the Allies – find themselves when battling medieval morality and terrorism. It
is a plight they willingly undertake to keep us - and others - safe.
Two SAS soldiers, Lance Corporal Mervyn John McDonald and Private Nathanael Galagher, also died at the time in a separate and unrelated event, killed in a helicopter crash.
LEST WE FORGET
Amen.
ReplyDeleteIt is a shame that there are some within our Nation who take advantage of the very freedom for which generations of young men have died so that they may find excuses for our enemies whilst ridiculing and fettering our ongoing efforts to maintain that freedom. Worse still, they use the deaths of these heroes to justify a demand for a withdrawal that shall, with certainty absolute, return that country to barbarism and the worst kind of violent secular insanity.
Well said, and I would go as far as saying, also the view of the silent majority.
ReplyDeleteI understand why we went into Afghanistan as it was the HQ of the Taliban and they were responsible for the 9/11 attacks; BUT can someone please explain to me why on earth we went to Iraq? There were no links to Taliban and Saddam Hussein (none that I have read about anyways) and where oh where were the WMDs? A load of hooey and GWBush knew it, he just wanted to finish what his Daddy started in Gulf War 1; and don't get me started on them wanting the oil in Iraq... But also agree with Laurie Boyd, that country will slide back to its old ways, girls sold and bartered like cattle, and the Taliban will once again rear its ugly head. Ah, as Doctor Who says, 'human beings - very complicated...'
ReplyDelete