Distortion nation : vimarsana.com

Image via ABC
Think of the most recent event that galvanised the Australian public in an explosion of moral protest and outrage. The event that most recently caused such a dramatic reappraisal of a national institution that it threatened to spill over into an examination of the national culture and character itself. The event that caused even Australians without any direct interest or concern in the people and institutions involved to express deep misgivings and anguish for something like the health of the national soul.
This event should have been the public release of the Brereton report, which occurred nearly a month ago now. After a four-year investigation into allegations about the behaviour of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, Justice Paul Brereton found that Australian soldiers had regularly planted “throwdowns” – weapons and other equipment, including radios – on civilians they’d killed, so as to create the false impression that the dead civilians were actually enemy combatants (who could be lawfully killed during battle). He found that many of these civilians had been killed by Australian troops acting intentionally: in other words, that Australian soldiers murdered civilians, often in cold blood. He found that senior soldiers often “blooded” their subordinates by ordering them to murder prisoners to notch up their first “kills”. And he found that there was a culture of cover-up in the Australian Defence Force that prevented officers above the level of patrol commander from knowing anything about these practices.