As Johnny Rotten said, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”

This post isn’t about writing but about lies told to us by our government about the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban – although many of those were in writing.

Australian and American troops (and others) have been there for 20 years.

Longer than American forces were in Vietnam.

The Taliban took Kabul in one day and the whole country in less than two weeks.

Want a historical parallel? The Khmer Rouge taking Cambodia.

There’s no other way that to describe this as a defeat for Australian and American military forces.

It’s more than that. It traduces the faith the Afghan people had in the western powers.

Now the men who helped the Australian and American forces will be rounded up and shot.

Their families made destitute or worse.

Successive Australian Governments going back to Howard promised the elimination of the Taliban.

They lied then and they lied now.