Letter to the Editor: The rules of war

DEAR News Of The Area,

I WOULD like to say I agree with Keith Wilkinson (8 May Edition).

I too have read a couple of Pete Sobey’s letters and think that he means well but like me has never been in a war situation with bullets and rockets whizzing around your head and of course IEDs as you patrol along roads etc.

I won’t get involved with debate over Ben Roberts-Smith but I do support him rather than not.

This brings me to a documentary I saw about ten years or more ago about an English journalist who was allowed to go on patrol with British soldiers in Afghanistan.

During filming an 18-year-old soldier was fatally wounded with a shot to the head causing obvious reactions from the remaining soldiers.

The patrol observed a small two storey building a short distance away and there was movement in and about a window.

The patrol kept to procedure, however after some time had elapsed a taxi pulled up and two men dressed in perahan o tunbans walked out of the building and got in the cab and left.

If the soldiers had engaged with these men it would have been against the rules of engagement and a war crime.

So basically rules for one and rules for another and by the way these soldiers were deployed under the UN.

Regards,
Paul ANDERSON,

Port Macquarie.