Australia’s troops ‘feel betrayed’ by our leaders and ‘so they should’: McGregor

now tonight i'm taking a little bit more time on my editorial because as a veteran i felt a strange sense of emptiness at the announcement that our longest war was finally drawing to a close an obviously emotional prime minister read the names of the 41 australian soldiers who were killed in afghanistan now i do not doubt his sincerity but the time for tears has come and gone actions speak louder than words if the government really has the backs of veterans as they keep telling us then it's time to drop all prosecutions for alleged war crimes in afghanistan and to pardon the former military lawyer david mcbride it is one thing to withdraw from afghanistan it is another thing entirely to bring our troops home if it doesn't really feel like home anymore and i know that far too many of our veterans don't feel like they're at home right now they've lost confidence in our leaders and they feel deeply betrayed and so they should i called for our withdrawal from afghanistan in 2016 in the daily telegraph i've repeatedly called for our complete withdrawal on this network in the intervening years and i warned that the americans would ultimately cut a deal with the taliban whether we agreed or not indeed it was obvious to me while i was a serving officer of the australian army as far back as 2007 that our strategy in afghanistan was deeply and fatally flawed in fact to apply the term strategy to the zombie process that saw our special forces misemployed and overused to conduct missions that had always been those preserved to our conventional infantry is to try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear in 2007 i took a risk i authorized publication by a fellow officer with whom i'd served on operations during the timor crisis in 2006 a man by the name of jim hammett to write an article highly critical of our strategy or lack thereof in afghanistan that article aroused the ire of the government of the day and the senior military leadership and jim hammett and i were both disciplined for it he dissected the casualty and risk aversion of our senior military and political leadership in ruthless detail the title of that article was we were soldiers once referring ironically to the fact that our conventional infantry felt that they were being shielded behind the wire and that the fighting was being done by the special forces because the government was too gutless to risk them at their core responsibility naming namely closing with and killing the enemy our infantry were deeply disappointed at the way they were being treated he pointed out that not since the vietnam war has our conventional infantry being used for a offensive maneuver now that's not their fault and there are soldiers from the 2nd 6th and 7th battalion amongst those killed in action our political class on both sides of politics had only one strategic objective in afghanistan and that was to plant our flag in the sand and be seen as reliable allies to the united states but the use of the special air service regiment to conduct conventional infantry missions demoralized our infantry and physically mentally and morally exhausted our special forces the role of the special air service regiment had traditionally been covert insertion surveillance and reconnaissance in a small five-man patrol as its basic unit of operation over time their basic unit of operation was increased and they were increasingly used as a blunt instrument conducting so-called decapitation missions against taliban leadership targets over time the effect of these on men who were deployed multiple times was to numb their moral sensibility and to psychologically scar them and it inculcated a body count measure of success that was endorsed at the very highest levels speaking on a condition of anonymity one former defense minister last week told me that at every nato conference he attended the single most important agenda item was the kill list and the body count now those who sent those men to kill every designated individual on the so-called joint prioritized effects list are now demanding exclusive moral culpability for the absence of any coherent strategy upon a handful of junior soldiers from one regiment it is absolutely sickening it is indefensible and it is reprehensible and the quiet australians are enraged by it from their ranks will come those juries that i believe will acquit every single man accused under the burton report but the process has now become the punishment in the past 24 hours i've seen many veterans expressing their feelings of emptiness and grief some simply haven't got the words to express the feelings of loss believe me i feel exactly the same was our service worthwhile did our mates die for nothing did our families face absences and uncertainty while a soft greedy nation went about its routine business oblivious to the war the adf and our families were in a long war the nation wasn't this week i felt utter disgust at the theatrical posturing of a millionaire ceo resplendent in white crying about being sacked over cartier watches i'll give you the big tip the taliban didn't need watches because they had time on their side christine holgate won the coveted victim of the week award from a has been comedian with a battleship mouth and a rowboat brain all the while a victoria cross winner whose courage under fire saved the lives of numerous fellow australians and has continued to undergo trial by media no tears from him nor any on his behalf welcome to australia in 2021 a nation that is now so lacking moral ballast that we believe christine holgate and magda zavansky are brave while we vilify men who have faced a deadly enemy in extreme conditions toxic masculinity apparently maybe try to stage a march for justice down the main street in herrut or kabul and let me know how you get on with that or take a look at the daniel pearl beheading video sometime the day i officially transferred back into the australian regular army from the reserves was 12 september 2001 that is also the day i walked away from the labour party and the broader left forever and voted for john howard in the next election the glee of the enlightened and compassionate left at seeing those hijacked aircraft plough into the world trade center convinced me that i had no place among such people this week reminded me why i loathe them to this day finally to the families who lost sons brothers or husbands and to every fellow veteran i want to pay sincere and genuine respect tonight if you are feeling numb or betrayed or sad you are entitled to forget our political class forget our media and forget the twitter posers and influences do what we always do rely on your mates here just as we do overseas call your mates especially this weekend and never be ashamed to admit that you're struggling at a time like this since we deployed interfet to east timor in september 1999 until later this year all three of our services will have been on continuous war or war-like service for the entire 21st century no one but our families noticed or cared but know this all of you you wrote a chapter in the narrative that began on that fatal shore in turkey in 1915 to those who have lost sons brothers husbands or fathers know this also they died doing what they loved among another family that loved them you can leave the australian army but it never leaves you nothing can detract from the intrinsic dignity of a soldier who puts everything on the line for an intangible value in a society that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing those intangibles are now sneered at in this decadent sikh society we have defiled the definition of hero but to everyone who has served and suffered in our longest war be proud of what you did the people who really matter your mates your team and your family know what you did the rest can assuage their miserable conscience and their spineless twitter army as best they can they are simply not worthy of you

Channel: Sky News Australia

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Length: 10min 38sec (638 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021