Aussie soldiers in massive Iraq ambush

Sasha Uzunov reports:

Australian soldiers from the Townsville unit 2RAR have killed up to 20 Iraqi insurgents after they were forced to fight their way out of an ambush with up to 150 insurgents yesterday. Soldiers from Alpha Company 2RAR are callling it the biggest shoot-out since Vietnam.

No Australians suffered casualties. Australian soldiers were on a routine patrol, north of their base Camp Smithy, in a town called Samawah. Soldiers were travelling in three Bushmaster vehicles when they were fired upon by RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenades).

One participant said that he saw hundreds of bullet rounds flying past him. "One Sergeant was being fired at and miracalously the bullets kept landing at his feet," the soldier said. "Another soldier was hit by an RPG round and we fought he was killed but luckily the RPG round hit a mud wall which absorbed the impact."

2RAR soldiers contacted me to tell their side of the story in case it was ignored and highlight inadequate equipment. Soldiers complained that the Bushmaster vehicles did not have adequate armour. The insurgents are believed to have numbered at least 150, 20 od whom were killed.

One soldier said he managed to look inside a building where the shots were coming from. "I saw at least a hundred or so bad guys inside and it was like a Christmas tree, with so much lights and flashes from the Kalashnikov rifles and RPGs going off."

United States Air Force jets F16s were called to provide bombing runs on the insurgents but were called off by Australian commanders on the spot for fear of Australian soldiers being too close. The ambush was intense and lasted about 20 minutes with the Australians withdrawing safely back to base.

The insurgents were well armed and well trained and they had well prepapred defensive positions when they ambushed the Australians near a swamp and raliway track. There were many Iraqi civilians near the place of combat but the Australians were disciplined and held their fire.

Copyright 2006, Sasha Uzunov

Sasha Uzunov is a freelance photo journalist and former Australian soldier.

Ezequiel Trumper for PM

I've found a man who can represent us all – he carries the delightful name Ezequiel Trumper, and he speaks with passion about the issues that should unite us all. Check out his brilliant analysis of the Howard-Beazley "Aussies values debate" in New Matilda today.

You'll need to subscribe, but it's worth the $88. Trumper co-hosts a daily news and current affairs show on Australia's only 24/7 Spanish-speaking radio station. It's called Radio Austral and it has a largely working-class audience across Sydney – and the voices on his show are far removed from the Alan Jones' "struggle street" audience.

Hours after Federal Andrew Robb released his Citizenship Testing Discussion Paper, he invited his audience to respond. Here's a taste:

So now they want me to sit a test in English. They didn't give a damn about my English when they brought me here in the 1970s. I was brought here to clean their toilets, wipe off their s**t, and now they want me to sit a bloody test...I can tell you where they can shove their test and their values...

And:

This is not the Australia that I knew. This is not the Australia I fell in love with. I fell in love with a country which showed solidarity, compassion, understanding...Now this is neofascism. I saw this before in Chile. Pinochet was born ahead of his time.

And:

Values? What Australian values? The values of what? Beer? What is so Australian about democracy? About respect for the law? I know more about democracy and the law than they do — I actually had to FIGHT for those values. And they have the gall to pretend that we should learn from them about their 'values'? About compassion? How can these people preach 'compassion' when they showed none in the past...look at what they did to the Aborigines, look at what they did to the refugees...What values are they talking about?

Trumper's analysis of the "Australian values" debate is a pearler. What's more, his name is redolant of what helped make Australia unique.

Ezequiel Trumper; a combination of the Biblical flood of immigrants who built our nation and rescued it from white picket fence suburbia - and the cricketer who embodied the notion of grace and fair play on the field.

A true multicultural Aussie, he was born in Argentina, and is a dual New Zealand and Australian citizen. To make things more confusing for everybody, he is also Jewish. Now, Ezequiel, if you only had some Koorie heritage, you'd be the complete Aussie and it’d be compulsory to elect you to parliament.

Together with pieces on the same subject by Emma Dawson and another expose by dashing SBS correspondent John Martinkus on the truth behind the East Timor coup, the latest New Matilda makes great reading.