I must admit I was pretty sadened by this when I heard about it. My initial reaction was oh christ what next, why don't we just start air striking mosques. Burning Korans, now shooting up the civvies, it seems to me the
hearts and minds campaign has just been set back to zero.
Australian forces lost several troops in a string of incidents late last year. It seemed you couldn't turn the news on without hearing of another. This naturally reignited the debate about pulling out but I believed some of the things I'd been reading about successes on the ground and that we should stay the course. Now however, I'm really discouraged by the effects these few incidents have, and will likely have, on the course of the continuing effort.
It just feels like a massive setback.
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