2Col 12 DEC 2020 Clarion
CLArion Issue No 1201, December 2020 Waterford sums up Email newsletter of Civil Liberties Australia (A04043) Email: The nation’s closest governance observer Secretary(at)cla.asn.au Web: http://www.cla.asn.au/ for the past 40 years, retired Canberra ____________________________________________ Times editor Jack Waterford (photo), pointed out the wider societal problems: Killings reveal more than just rogue soldiers “Could anything similar occur in the Illegal killings in Afghanistan, allegedly by Australian special Australian Federal Police – perhaps the forces, will be confirmed or not, and punishments determined most politicised force in the nation? in court, maybe two-to-10 years from now. “One would have only to paraphrase Brereton slightly to But the over-riding national reality, evident and correctable from describe how police internal affairs units, coroners' officers, and now, is that politicians and their parties, Defence, the defence sometimes even integrity units investigate other police, and, industry and their offshoots, like the Australian War Memorial, overwhelmingly, find that complaints have not been made out. plus an enormous subset of hangers-on, have abused “The culture of which Brereton complains in special forces – a patriotism to create a khaki populism which has skewed culture of flat refusal to account – has long been a feature of Australian society drastically. Australian police forces, especially those, such as the AFP, The results since about 1990 are: never been the subject of independent external review. • a lack
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