In Afghanistan our troops were "fighting people who didn't abide by the rules of war". Is that no more than an allegation? Or is it the subject of an Australian criminal conviction, under Australian law, but using evidence from witnesses who did not have their travel expenses, food and accommodation costs met?

In Afghanistan our troops faced combatants who "wore no uniforms". Is that no more than an allegation, by the same standard Burns applies to benefit Australians?

"Australians were murdered by Afghan soldiers". Is that, too, proven by an Australian criminal conviction, under Australian law, by witnesses who did not have witness expenses met? There are no Australian trials where witnesses aren't entitled to expenses.

Were no offences committed, in any Australian cold cases that aren't about war crimes, because no one has yet been convicted in relation to them?

Or were the war crimes found by Brereton after a four-and-a-half year enquiry, conducted by an experienced military officer and Supreme Court justice, something more than "rumours" as Andrew Hastie would have it, and something at least as well established as the claims Burns makes (correctly) on rather less enquiry and less evidence?

Brereton gathered substantial evidence withheld from public view lest it prejudice the individual prosecutions now being considered.

If we were there "supposedly to help and protect" soldiers I suspect it was the soldiers of our hegemon, the USA, rather than Afghan soldiers.

But we were told we were there to help and protect the Afghan people. Being shot at, and blown up, by particular Afghans doesn't diminish what we were there to do, and the desire by many more Afghans that we should do it.

Killing civilians and prisoners, and torturing civilians and prisoners, can't be justified by having come under attack some other time or in some other place or by some other people.

Australia has been under increasing pressure internationally to set more ambitious targets on our emissions reductions. Future trade deals may well be conditional on this country setting and meeting such higher targets.

But our PM has stated more than once that "Australia's climate and energy policy will be set here in Australia, in Australia's national interest." (Canberra Times, December 11).

Prime Minister, surely it is in Australia's interest to fast-track the switch to renewables? We already have the technology available, in the form of wind and solar with battery storage.

According to a recent CSIRO report, these energy sources are found to be at least 50 per cent more cost-effective than other sources of power.

Carbon capture is also more costly than solar and wind. With old-growth forest a ready-made source of carbon capture, it makes more sense to preserve what is left of our precious wilderness areas. Revenue from tourism to these areas would be an added benefit. We have such opportunities at our fingertips.

For the sake of our planet and in our own economic interest, we need to take swift action- the sooner the better.

It's unremarkable that Scott Morrison was not invited to speak at the Climate Ambition Conference. The coalition's climate change recalcitrance has finally caught up with it.

But Morrison doesn't care: "It's not something that troubles me or concerns me one way or the other."

On climate he says "the only people I answer to in this place is the Australian people, and our government stands to serve the Australian people."

Morrison has not abandoned use of Kyoto carryover credits, simply telling Pacific leaders that he was "very confident" Australia wouldn't need to draw on its Kyoto protocol carryover credits "that Australia earned" to meet its 2030 target. That sounds like he still wants to keep the credits in his back pocket, just in case. Not good enough!

The PM should officially notify cancellation of Australia's Kyoto credits, as other countries have done, so there's no possibility they can be used.

The PM gestures to net-zero emissions "as soon as possible". That's a lazy "out" on behalf of his fossil fuel cronies and no commitment at all. He's not acting in the best interest of Australians or the peoples of the Pacific who are demanding much greater commitment and action on climate mitigation.

Climate change is the greatest threat facing the region. If concern for the "Pacific family" and the Pacific Step-Up is to mean anything, then the government needs to commit to net-zero by 2050, as others have done, and develop specific policies to ensure that commitment is met.

It seems to me that Prime Minister Morrison is in a huff after having been rebuffed by the organisers of the UN-UK-organised online climate summit on December 12-13: he is now effectively claiming that he rejected the summit first ("PM rejects global climate summit", December 11, p23).

The organisers of the summit had good reason for leaving our Prime Minister off the list of speakers. Mr Morrison's dismissive attitude towards climate change continues unabated. The latest iteration is an accounting trick that increases Australia's emissions ambition from a grossly inadequate 26 to 28 per cent reduction on 2005 levels by 2030 to a woefully inadequate 29 per cent reduction.

Climate experts such as the ANU's Professor Will Steffen are now saying that Australia must aim net-zero emissions by 2050, as committed to by all states and territories, but by 2030. Yet Mr Morrison has the gall to claim that Australia "is getting it done on emissions reduction".

The rebels lost the Spanish civil war (1936-1939), according to Professor John Malouff (Canberra Times, December 13, p18).

Amazing. It contradicts the commonly held view that the rebels, led by General Franco, won.

But he is right on one point. As he states, George Orwell's account in Homage to Catalonia, published in April 1938, did indeed have few readers at the time. People on the left did not like it. Gollancz, a leading left-wing publisher, had rejected it.

Orwell gave a truthful account of how the communist defenders on the government side fought not only the fascist rebels, but also their anarchist and "Trotskyist" comrades-in-arms, including Orwell. He only just survived the communist terror.

After the war, the reading public became increasingly aware of the nature of Soviet communism.

It was then that this and other books by Orwell became bestsellers.

It would be easy to assume from Jenna Price's article headed "It's love and money. Mostly money" (December 11) that because Australia's fertility rate is below replacement level (2.1 births per woman) and migration has virtually stopped due to COVID-19, that Australia's population is falling. In fact, it continues to grow. This is because of the age structure of the population due to past high immigration.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics projections, there are far more women having children (one birth every 1 minute 43 seconds), than there are people dying (one death every 3 minutes 13 seconds).

It would actually be a good thing for this country if the population did decline. Hopefully in time, we would then stop destroying the habitat that our unique wildlife requires to survive, in order to provide the infrastructure necessary for an ever increasing number of humans.

Sometimes you wonder about technological advancements. The main worry about Drones flying overhead used to be them crashing or invading your privacy especially when sunbaking. Now add a flame thrower and the world changes.

A volunteer group in Zhong County, China, that normally uses a drone to find lost people attached a flamethrower to one to destroy wasp nests. It proved to be very effective.

The concern is what happens at the end of the day when someone takes the toy home or someone in the military sees them and thinks this could be of use. A flying flamethrower could be better at dispersing crowds than a water cannon.

A simple concern is that no matter how well intentioned the development of technology is someone will find a more interesting and possibly dangerous use.

Cars were a great improvement on horses, but they have killed a lot more people than horses did. And let's not discuss the good and bad of online technologies such as Facebook or Twitter!

Don't worry the Robots aren't coming to get us, they are probably already here.

Now that the demolition of the award winning building adjunct to the Australian War Memorial, and subsequent expansion to show more recent conflict reminders of our engagements since Vietnam has been approved, might I suggest a a modest addition to the AWM's entrance.

For a mere half million or so, why not build a plinth or column, and name it "Nelson's Column"? Lest We Forget!

It is very naive of us to think that there will be no huge outbreaks of COVID-19 sooner or later after we opened our domestic borders. Just look at the experience of other countries.

I think we should have waited another three months at most and after rolling out the vaccine. I hope I am wrong.

The fight against the devastating global impact of climate change calls for genuine commitment from leaders around the world. Our leader Scott Morrison does not have that commitment. His true commitment is to the coal he brought to wave in parliament.

So let us not have false expectations about Mr Morrison's commitment to climate change. I think even the United Nations recognises that.

I was delighted to see Senator Seselja find his voice and publicly call for the government, of which he has been a member for seven years, to take some action to support Mr Fluffy victims ("Zed wants Feds to consider Fluffy help" Canberra Times, December 9).

I guess six years too late is better than not at all.

Morrison to Hansard: "Never before...have we called upon our Australian Public service to do more..." (Churchillian?) with less, while being denied pay rises - except secretaries, who've done very well, thank you - burdened by and competing with rent-seeking, tax-evading outsourcing ("'Their finest year': PM praises APS efforts", December 11, p14)!

Can David Pope draw any of the Labor Party team or are they not worth the effort?

The State sanctioned murder of one of its citizens can never be justified or rationalised even if it's an allowable penalty under their judicial system.

There is a parallel between the cover story ("Battle scars", December 12) and David Pope's editorial cartoon on the same day, The Australian Christmas Carol summed up in the opening line from Guy Sebastian's 2015 single The wound heals but it never does.

To correct the record ("The new anthem", Letters, December 12, p33), I Am Australian was written by Bruce Woodley of The Seekers AND Dobe Newton of the Bushwackers.

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