Okay, as our Julia said, it's sad. Nothing can minimize the tragedy of fatal betrayal, Afghan soldiers recently recruited, trained by our guys, who have among them traitors, necessarily trusted totally in battle, who fatally betray.
To be a little balanced about it, I have heard claims that larger numbers of Afghan than "blue" soldiers are suffering the same fatal betrayal.
But it comes back to a point I've made before. Our involvement from the start was totally deluded because we attempted and attempt still to conceive Afghanistan as an idealistic Australian multicultural society.
The nature of Afghan multiculturalism is seen by the proportion of Hazaras among the boat people who, already refugees in Pakistan, try to come here.
That proportion seems to be around 100 percent. Correct me if you can.
The problem: Pashtun racism which has involved mass murder of Hazaras for centuries.
Why? Answer: Because there is no such place as Afghanistan. There is no such nation. "Afghan" is Persian for "Pashtun". But far from Afghanistan being the country of the Pashtuns, it is largely a region of non-Afghans oppressed by Afghans.
The Pashtun-speaking part of Afghanistan borders Pakistan. As they took control it widened, and their relative numbers increased, reached a slight majority of the total, but that's essentially it. The centre, Hazarajat, and the northern and eastern parts are Tajik-speaking regions. Or, a small region far north, Uzbek. But essentially, Tajik.
"Tajik" is Turkish or dialectal Turkic for "Persian". It means, exactly, Persian. Tajikistan, like most of Afghanistan, was anciently part of Persia. I know I've given this lecture, but let me repeat it. "Tajikistan" means "Persia". In the region, in the languages, the two words are interchangeable.
The Hazaras are Tajik speakers, indicating long historic accomodation with Persia. (To quote Wikipedia, "Hazaras are a Persian-speaking people.")
The Taliban are essentially Pashtuns. If an Afghan soldier guns down Australians and flees to join the Taliban you can be sure that he was a Pashtun. The Pashtuns are NOT a Persian-speaking people.
Afghanistan, as it appears on the map, is a region that has been conquered and murderously oppressed by the Pashtuns.
But we insist on living out such a delusion of political correctness that the distinction has been totally ignored in the news reports of "green on blue" killings that I have seen. It is a brutal reality that political correctness, and a delusion that Australian multicultural ideals are some more ultimate reality, forbids us to notice. We are compelled to live a destructive fantasy.
Let's get it clear. Political correctness, when taken out of the context in which it was conceived, is not only an offence against freedom of expression.
It is literally murder.
The futility of all we have done, all the Americans and their allies have done in Afghanistan, is absolute.
And it is plain for all to see.
It was all based on a confused mixture of imperialism and delusion. The Taliban are a creation of the United States whose objective was to destroy the secular society established by a socialist or communist government with the support of the USSR.
I have read about that period being looked back on, particularly by the women of Afghanistan, as the "Golden Age". Everything that followed was cruel, murderous, disastrous.
So, if the USA and Australia (and others under the influence of the USA) were going to intervene in Afghanistan following "Nine Eleven", what was the sane thing for them to do?
It was to split the country into two parts, to free the country, to make clear that "Afghanistan" could only refer to the historically Pashtun-speaking regions.
To enlist the Tadjik and Uzbek speaking regions, to enlist and train soldiers from those regions, to create and enforce a new national boundary between the Tajik and Pashtun-speaking regions.
In doing so, in focussing on the defence of that boundary, they would have protected the Hazaras from the Pashtuns and there would not today be "Afghan" boat-people.
And they would have essentially ended the problem of the Taliban. They would have been localized in the Pashtun-speaking region where they would have been able to oppress no-one except for people just like themselves, people who knew them well, with whom they would eventually have reached peaceful accommodation.
Problem solved. All problems solved.
Except that the solution was prevented by the delusions and fantasies, or perhaps the brutal cynicism, of our national leaders. Our own worst enemies.