In the middle of all the turmoil and chaos of last week, nobody really noticed Peter Dutton was busy grovelling to 13 special forces soldiers accused of war crimes.
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"If people have been wrongly accused and they've now been cleared of that, then I do apologise for what they've been through, what their families have been through", the Defence Minister told 2GB's Ray Hadley.
"If people have got criminal charges to answer then that's a matter for the courts but for the rest", he said, "we move on from that chapter now".
It was just as if he was back on the beat, all those years ago, a Queensland cop again. "Move along people; nothing to see here."
Except that there is.
For a start - as Dutton is very well aware - there's a big difference between actually being cleared and what's happened. The prosecutors have simply decided they can't marshal enough evidence in court to refer some allegations further.
This in itself raises huge questions, because there was certainly enough evidence existing to convince Major-General Justice Paul Brereton (himself a respected judge of the NSW Court of Appeal and former infantryman commanding 5th Brigade) that charges should be laid. If he says, as he did, there's a case to answer, you can be sure there is.
The most plausible explanation the charges were dropped is now, with the country in the Taliban's hands, military lawyers believe they won't be able to call the witnesses they want, or travel to those valleys where the killings allegedly occurred.
The other possibility is plea bargaining; that some are offering to give evidence in return for immunity. Either way, it's not what Dutton was suggesting at all.
Most particularly, the minister was impugning the integrity of the exhaustive, detailed and comprehensive brief provided by Brereton.
The incidents detailed in his exhaustive, five-volume report have been blacked out to extend procedural fairness to the accused. It's worth noting, however, that there's nothing slip-shod or conjectural about either the judge's research or his conclusions.
The only requirement was for a prosecutor to pick it up and follow the logic and that is something very different to what Dutton's implying, if only by omission: that the individuals had been cleared.
Three people now, from three very different professions - a lawyer, an anthropologist and a journalist - have examined what occurred and all have absolutely no doubt illegal killings took place. What Dutton says doesn't change this.
If you want to know what actually happened, together with the wider corrosive effect of this break-down in discipline in the forces, buy ABC journalist Mark Willacy's book, Rogue Forces. I defy anyone not to be sickened and angered by the end of this intimate, solidly researched, yet surprisingly sympathetic reporting on the actions of our "operators".
Willacy first obtained the startling helmet-cam footage, broadcast last year, of a helpless Afghan cowering in a field as he was callously shot, in cold blood, by an Australian SAS soldier. This report broke the dam.
As former soldiers realised he could be trusted, more and more came forward with their stories. Then, and just like the judge, the reporter checked and double-checked until he'd built a solid understanding of what it was like to be there, bursting open compounds and throwing grenades inside; tossing insurgent weaponry on dead farmers to prove they were Taliban; being pressured by senior soldiers to shut up and not rock the boat.
What Willacy's detailed book proves is that we were being fed a myth; that these were heroes, the crack elite who were winning the war. They weren't. Instead they were attempting to kill their way to victory, one farmer at a time.
When the SAS began to go off the rails in a big way, dropping in to villages and shooting people seemingly at random, all they accomplished was diametrically opposed to the achievement of their mission. Nothing Dutton says changes reality.
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What Willacy makes clear is that soldiers who were supposed to be special had actually become very ordinary indeed. Instead of being tasked to accomplish strategic objectives they were being used to hammer ordinary, tactical, nails and their tools had broken. The senior NCOs had taken effective control of the unit. A culture of secrecy and bullying had developed.
This is what anthropologist Samantha Crompvoets' original, anthropological study had revealed: that too much had been asked of the troops and that a horrific culture had taken the place of discipline. She's now also written a measured, careful study - Blood Lust, Trust and Blame - that makes it abundantly clear that she isn't taking a backward step, either.
Her book examines the continuing organisational cost of this failure to accept and deal with what happened in Afghanistan. This is the other issue, one which lingers and cripples our army today. Commanders know the tip of the spear that our special forces have become is broken, but Dutton refuses to allow necessary change. By his inaction the minister's transforming what went on in the past from an incident into a continuing, corrupting sore. Instead of cauterising the issue by backing commanders he's taken on the role of defending the indefensible. The long-term result of doing this will be catastrophic.
Until the demons of the past are properly dealt with they will continue to resurface as occurred last week, when one of those accused returned to Afghanistan to assist with the evacuation.
So where do we stand, as a nation?
On the one side we have all those who've actually read the evidence and are convinced terrible things occurred: former minister (and experienced Reserve officer) Linda Reynolds; CDF (and SAS-badged soldier) Angus Campbell; ex-special forces commander (and exceptional leader) Jeff Sengleman; Justice Brereton; brilliant journalists, like Willacy and all those currently defending their stories in court on the basis of solid truth; and Crompvoets, an experienced researcher the military trusted to conduct detailed research.
On the other we have Dutton, cringing and kneeling at the feet of those accused of war crimes; a politician who isn't prepared to face questioning media.
Who will you believe?
- Nicholas Stuart is a Canberra writer and a regular columnist.