‘Murky wars and missions unaccomplished‘, Pearls and Irritations, 25 January 2018
This [Syria] longest war in Australia’s history is the latest in the list of foreign conflicts in which we have joined Americans, supposedly fighting communists or terrorists, but being told very little.
Close analysis of mission creep, strategic obscurity, and suppression of information. The article uses specialist sources that the mainstream media barely bothers with – which is, perhaps, one of the reasons why important questions in this field are not researched and asked, and thus why Australian governments have had an easy ride in defence matters.
Broinowski concludes:
Questions for Australians to ask our government include who our enemies are in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, on what legal basis our forces are deployed, and if IS has been defeated, why are they still there? To whom are we selling arms and why? When we make “mistakes” [kill civilians] what reparations do we offer? We pay for these wars, and we deserve to know the answers.
Alison Broinowski is Honest History’s vice president, co-editor of The Honest History Book, and author of a chapter in that book titled ‘Australia’s tug of war: Militarism versus independence’.