Australian Military Hides Truth Of 'War On Terror' Casualties

Most Australians Have No Idea Of The Scale Of Violence Our Soldiers Have Experienced In Iraq And Afghanistan

Australian Defence Force chiefs kept secret the death of soldier David Pearce for some 10 hours, according to this story. It's the latest example of a carefully designed program within the defence force, initiated by the Howard government, of information suppression and control, mostly aimed at keeping quiet, for as long as possible, the truth about the violence Australian soldiers are encountering in Iraq and Afghanistan :

...the Afghanistan and Iraq deployments remain among the most secretive ever undertaken by our forces.

The attack in which Trooper Pearce died was the latest in a six-month barrage involving Australian troops in the Oruzgan Province.

About 25 roadside explosions targeting Coalition forces have been recorded there since June.

It is often days before the Australian Defence Force acknowledges such engagements. Some attacks, especially those involving special forces troops, are not spoken of publicly at all.

At least seven times since August the ADF has failed to release details of hostile engagements between Australian soldiers and the enemy until at least two days after the attacks.

The tactic is to invoke an information blackout on the most serious incidents and release minimal information when it has been rigorously vetted by senior officers and bureaucrats.

Australia has suffered four military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, the conflicts have also produced more than 50 battlefield injuries and more than a dozen soldiers are believed to have been permanently incapacitated as a result.

Along with the hundreds of veterans now suffering the horrors of what will likely prove to be lifelong post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of those who are being hammered by the early stages of PTSD are as young as 20 years old. Unofficially, divorce rates for Australian 'War on Terror' veterans are soaring, as are incidents of suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism and domestic violence.

By downplaying, controlling and outright censoring the truth of what is happening to Australian soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the veterans who have returned from those wars are now encountering a public that can barely comprehend what they've gone through.

How are non-military associated Australians expected to know how horrific many of the veterans tours of duty have been when so little of the facts find their way into the Australian media?

The full impact of this kind of censorship and suppression by military chiefs, under the guidance and encouragement of the Howard government, will become clear in the next decade when the long-term effects and impact of PTSD for these veterans become clearer.

As with the veterans of the Vietnam War, the new generation of veterans will eventually be forced to ask for more help and will be faced with a public that doesn't understand, because they don't know, what the scale of the violence they experienced during their deployments done to their lives and their families.

Let's hope the current generation of youth learn how to look after the needs of 'WoT' veterans better than the Baby Boomers did for the veterans of Korea and Vietnam.


UPDATE : The Australian Defence Force is now denying there was a cover-up, or a failure to reveal details with due haste of the death of soldier David Pearce.

Liberal Chief Of Staff : Australian Soldiers In Iraq Like Nazi Guards At Concentration Camp

As Liberal Party MPs, and their key staffers, try to deal with the reality that they are extremely likely to lose their seats, and their jobs, in the coming federal elections, the sheer desperateness of their position is showing itself in ever more vile and disgusting ways.

Peter Phelps, the chief of staff to a Liberal MP, attended a public forum where respected and distinguished Iraq War veteran Colonel Mike Kelly was speaking. Col. Kelly is running for the seat currently held by Phelps' boss in the coming federal election.

During the Q & A that followed Col. Kelly's speech, Liberal Party staffer Phelps grew angry as Col. Kelly refused to acknowledge his absurd claims that because Col. Kelly was a veteran of the Iraq War he was being hypocritical to hold the position that Australia should now withdraw its combat forces from the war zone.

Phelps is clearly so stupid, and ignorant, he doesn't comprehend that if you're already in the Australian Army when the federal government goes to war on another country, you do as you are ordered. Col. Kelly did the same as the many hundreds of other Australian soldiers who disagreed with the now vastly discredited case for War On Iraq put forward in early 2003 by prime minister John Howard, when Howard followed US President Bush into invading, occupying and allowing chaos to reign in Iraq.

Just because an Australian soldier didn't think the war was right, or necessary, didn't mean he or she had a choice about serving.

Col. Kelly refused to be baited by Phelps, who was told to shut up by other locals who wanted to ask Col. Kelly more relevant questions on local issues. Phelps kept going, seething with anger, and then asked Col. Kelly if his role in Iraq was like that of the Nazi guards at the Belsen concentration camp during World War 2.

Phelps has now apologized to Col. Kelly, but only after the despicable incident was raised in federal Parliament. In short, Phelps was shamed into apologizing, or forced to do so by his boss. Phelps insulted Col. Kelly, and every other veteran of the Iraq War, last week. He had more than five days to apologize. He refused to do so until today.

Despite his belated retraction, Phelps clearly believes what he said.

In a letter to Col. Kelly, Phelps referred to his comparison between Australian soldiers serving in Iraq, and Nazi guards at WW2 death camp, as "a partisan political point."

From AAP :

Col Kelly was keen to move past the row today but reiterated his pledge to run a clean and fair campaign.

"From the start of this, I made a commitment to play the ball and not the man, and focus on the issue," he said.

"I call upon all candidates to run a clean campaign and let's hope we can go that way from here."

Col. Kelly can have his dream of taking part in a clean election campaign, but furious, pathetic soldier-hating Liberals like Phelps will make sure that is one of the dirtiest campaigns ever seen. The Liberals are desperate, and scared, and their actions will become only more explosive, abhorrent and vile as the reality of their fate causes further panic.

Labor backbencher Michael Danby, the only Jewish MP in Parliament, described the comments as offensive not only to the Jewish community but to former and current Australian military personnel.

"I felt sick to my stomach sitting in federal parliament hearing some of these comparisons," Mr Danby said.

"Dr Phelps has attempted to equate an Australian who served in Iraq with someone who was a Nazi concentration camp guard at Belsen.

"This is deeply offensive not just to the Australian Jewish community but to all of our World War II diggers and airman who fought to defeat Nazism.

"It's also an astonishing attack on our servicemen in Iraq."

It's not the first time the Liberals have insulted Australian veterans. And it won't be the last.

Liberals like Phelps are following the example set by their leader, John Howard, who said the thousands of World War 2, Korea and Vietnam veterans who voiced their dissent against the War On Iraq, in early 2003, were giving "aid and comfort" to Saddam Hussein.

Around the same time, John Howard was busy doing all he could to supposedly ignore more than a dozen memos, letters and reports that flowed through his office warning him that the Australian Wheat Board was funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to the Saddam Hussein regime.

Liberals, like Phelps and Howard, don't care if they're being hypocrites, or spitting blood in the faces of Australian veterans with their crude and shameful insults. They only care about winning, nothing more.