Australia has lost its fourth soldier in days in Afghanistan.   

The Australian Defence Force says the soldier was killed in Oruzgan province yesterday.

His family has been notified but are yet make a statement.
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"Defence will not release any information until further details are available and confirmed," a spokesman said.

Defence chief Angus Houston is expected to address a media conference in Canberra at 9.30am.

The death brings the number of Australian casualties in Afghanistan to 27, and is the fourth in two weeks.

The grim news comes a day after the bodies of two diggers killed in Afghanistan were returned to Melbourne.

Lance-Corporal Andrew Jones was killed by a rogue Afghan soldier who was serving alongside him at the Chora Valley base on May 30.

Lieutenant Marcus Case died in a Chinook helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan on the same day.

On May 23, Sergeant Brett Wood, 32, was killed by a bomb blast while on patrol in southern Afghanistan.

More soon

With the death of a fourth Australian soldier in two weeks, there is a growing urgency for Australia's leaders to provide a clear rationale and evidence for our involvement in Afghanistan.

Maybe is was the manner of Lance Corporal Andrew Jones's death last week — gunned down by one of his Afghan counterparts, maybe it was the recent death of Osama bin Laden, or perhaps the slowly dawning knowledge that the US is losing its stomach for the war, but there is a sense that the public will increasingly demand answers. 

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper stood in Kandahar last week and congratulated troops on ensuring that Afghanistan is no longer a base for terrorism.


"This country does not represent a geostrategic risk to the world," Harper said. "It is no longer a source of global terrorism."

Hours later, however, Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith stood before reporters at Defence headquarters in Canberra to announce the deaths of two Australian troops in Afghanistan, including Lance Corporal Jones.   

As has become customary after military casualties in Afghanistan, he reiterated the reasons for Australia's involvement in the war, including the need to "stare down international terrorism".

Smith was asked almost immediately by a reporter to outline the nature of the terrorist threat we face in Afghanistan.

"In Afghanistan we know that the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area has for a long period of time been a breeding ground for international terrorism and very many of the attacks by international terrorists, not just on Australian citizens, whether that's in South-East Asia or the United States or Europe, can be traced back to this area," Smith said.

So, our Canadian allies, who have paid a terrible price in Afghanistan, losing 156 soldiers, believe the terrorist threat in Afghanistan is dead, while our government is equally adamant that it is not.

The obligation of Smith, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and the federal government is clear: They need to provide the Australian people with solid evidence of the terrorist threat. They need to rise in Parliament and lay out the confirmed links between Afghanistan and recent acts of international terrorism. It shouldn't be time consuming if the government has all the information at its fingertips, which you would expect, given the issue's importance.

If evidence exists that the lives of Australians and other people around the world are genuinely threatened by groups or individuals in Afghanistan, the case for our involvement is strong and support for the war would presumably increase.

Pictures released of Lance Corporal Jones and Marcus Case, a lieutenant killed in a helicopter crash last week, ram home the price Australia has paid for its involvement in this war. Grinning young men, Jones in his Army chef's rig, Case wearing aviator shades and a baseball cap behind the controls of a helicopter.

These men leave behind families, friends and other loved ones, and that is the significance of their deaths, not the symbolism imputed by politicians, the use of their memories in an attempt to bolster support for the war.

If recent experience is any guide, though, we should not expect the government to publicly back up its statements with evidence.   

Rudd recently claimed that Australian troops are fighting al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. When The Sunday Age's foreign editor, Tom Hyland, asked for evidence to support the assertion, he was disappointed.

"In response to The Sunday Age's questions, neither Mr Rudd, nor Defence Minister Stephen Smith nor the [Australian Defence Force] would say when or where Australian troops had encountered al-Qaeda fighters," Hyland later wrote.

"Nor does there appear to be any reference in the ADF's public statements to Australians fighting al-Qaeda since 2002."

Only the Greens have consistently questioned the need for our troops to be in Afghanistan, and their policy is instinctive and ingrained, not necessarily built on a careful analysis of the issues.   

Is there not one parliamentarian from the Labor Party or the Coalition who believes the Australian public should be fully informed about our rationale for being in Afghanistan? Surely it is time for somebody to speak up.

<<Is there not one parliamentarian from the Labor Party or the Coalition who believes the Australian public should be fully informed about our rationale for being in Afghanistan? Surely it is time for somebody to speak up.>>
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What can they say? we blindly follow America wherever they lead us. The majority of Australians do not want us to be involved in Afghanistan, so either side know that they are going against the wishes of the people.

Listen to Gillard's same old spiel every time a soldier gets killed. We will stay until the job is done (or until America leave). What job? there's no job to do in Afghanistan, unless she calls helping America in their insatiable urge to control every fuel rich nation a job.

Where the US goes we follow. As I said in another post all the US has to do is a change of strategy hence forcing us to fight it out virtually on our own and then see what the PM says about "staying the distance" etc.

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Jun 7^th, 2011 at 9:28am:



pansi thats not true or nice... a couple of our guys were killed by land mines... I dont call them poor peasants.

our boys are not fighting they are training..the Afghanistan to stick up for himself.. and fight for freedom.. its the right thing to do..

do you think its okay to have a downtrodden nation ruled by the Taliban.? because they dont know how to fight.only submit.

cods wrote on Jun 7^th, 2011 at 9:22pm:



player<We are all murderers convinced by racist propaganda that it aint no big thing!>

America and its allies should butt out of other countries business and let them look after themselves. If the oppressed people is really your argument cods, why are America not in the Congo where thousands of women and girls are raped on a daily basis? No oil, no interest.