Of law and war

This article was published in The Sydney Morning Herald 17 October 2010

Our military justice system distinguishes us from the Taliban - let it run its course.

On a November night in 2007, Australian commandos raided an Afghan farm compound known to be used by Taliban fighters. The first commando through the door was Private Luke Worsley, who was shot dead by a Taliban fighter just 18 metres away. What an army inquiry later described as an ''intense close-quarter battle'' erupted, with the Australians under fire from multiple directions. Then, amid the smoke and noise of chaotic combat, an extraordinary apparition emerged: a small child, a toddler, walking across the compound.

''Despite the pressures of the battle,'' the inquiry said, ''the Australian troops exercised remarkable skill and judgment so as not to injure the child.'' They stopped firing until the toddler was out of the way. Then battle resumed.

The child survived, but two others didn't - a baby, maybe six months old, and a girl, aged between 13 and 16. An undisclosed number of insurgents were also killed.