The story of the War on Terror is riddled with controversy and failure. From the moment two passenger planes were flown into the Twin Towers in New York, the West has been challenged over its ability to meet an ill-defined enemy with conventional militaries in asymmetric warfare.
From the false reasoning behind the war in Iraq to the horrors of Abu Ghraib prison, there have been events that have undermined the moral claim Western democracies have held to as their purpose for a conflict that has consumed a generation.
Now, we have our own suggestions of a scandal in a new book, Hit & Run, from journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson. We have been told that the estimated 25,000 civilians killed in Afghanistan now include six people whose deaths fall at our feet. Those six people include a 3-year-old.
As in other countries, the scandal has escalated from individual soldiers to embroil their commanders and then politicians who sent them there. It is right they do so. In democratic societies, soldiers do not place feet on the field of battle without the blessings of their democratically elected governments.
New Zealand joined this global war cautiously. Our contribution to Iraq was at a careful distance with engineers used on PR-friendly infrastructure projects. In Afghanistan, the NZ Special Air Service was deployed to deserts and mountains effectively as gatherers of intelligence.