- Bligh unveils 20-year infrastructure plan
- Torres Strait pleads for climate change action
- Overcrowding in parliamentary precinct worsens, Opposition says
- Minister apologises for 'boisterous' comment
- Junee senator questions Australian Quarantine rules
- Carbon price 'disastrous' for mining companies
- Local MP urges PM's carbon tax tour to visit Riverina
British troop misconduct in Iraq caught on tape
A story that has gone almost unreported in the Australian media is generating a storm of controversy in the UK - and most of the rest of the world. The British tabloid News of the World has obtained a video made by a British soldier showing the vicious beating by British troops of several young Iraqi men and one Iraqi boy inside a military compound. The commentary made on the tape demonstrate demonstrate that this is a regular occurrence, at least at the location in question. An arrest has already been made with more sure to follow.
Although (to my knowledge) Australian troops have not been directly implicated in any mistreatment of prisoners or of civilians, it is unlikely that the Iraqis draw any great distinction between the occupation troops when reacting to this behaviour. Acts like these give them good reason to consider the occupying forces as brutal, and for wanting to see them gone.
This video represents more evidence that the time has come to set a short timetable for withdrawal.