Apparently for the Chiefs of the ADF the truth hurts.  

The Australian has today published this extraordinary etter from the chiefs of the Army, Navy, RAAF and ADF.

Dear Editor,

Your editorial (“Military no place for tokenism”, 8/4) demands a response. The Australian Defence Force strives to create an environment where all of our people can feel valued and empowered to bring ideas to the table. Our goal is to foster a workplace that encourages ideas, attracts the best talent and creates a sense of pride in all that we do.

You may find that last sentence familiar, because it is almost a direct copy of your company’s statement on diversity.

Diversity is not about identity politics, it is about improving the quality of the workplace; it’s the antidote to groupthink — gaining a wider range of perspectives to make better decisions and, in the military context, enhancing our capability, that often intangible concept that is manifest in the conduct of military operations.

So it is somewhat disappointing that The Australian through a series of reports and editorials over the past few months, finds it necessary to undermine the efforts of the ADF to bring about needed cultural change.

Over the past few years the ADF has made significant change across a wide range of cultural issues. The gut wrenching stories of former and serving members of the ADF through the work of the abuse response task force were born out of one simple thing — a culture of exclusion.

The only way to ensure that these types of events cannot systemically take hold again is to ensure that we have a culture of inclusion. A culture that ensures the needs of various groups within our workforce can be accommodated so they can perform at their best.

As commanders, it matters little to us whether that is due to gender, race, religion or sexual orientation. What matters is that we have a cohesive team that is committed to the task — delivering options to the government of the day, every day.

Apart from our missions around the world, we are overhauling our equipment acquisition processes through some of the most fundamental reforms in the organisation’s history. These activities are not the signs of an organisation “redirecting resources to impotent causes”, these are signs of an organisation that is changing to ensure we are representative of the community we defend.

M. D. Binskin, Chief of the Defence Force 

R. J. Griggs, Vice Chief of the Defence Force

T. W. Barrett, Chief of Navy

R. M. Burr, Acting Chief of Army

G. N. Davies, Chief of Air Force

They have lost it.   What are they thinking, accusing a newspaper of undermining their efforts at cultural change?  They must have pretty fragile systems and processes if a few newspaper articles can send them crashing down.

What were they thinking they would achieve by sending this silly, self-absorbed letter.?  It addresses no mistakes of fact and corrects no record.   It seems to be a request that the Australian stops reporting in a way that does't fit the ADF's PR and spin.   No one in our society is above criticism and we are all allowed to hold opinions and to speak freely.

The ADF is a group of disciplined services where people do what they're told.   It says a lot that its chiefs believe that a newspaper which reports  facts and editorial opinion is capable of undermining their leadership.

Get over yourselves men - you would do better to listen to the criticism than attack the people reporting it.

I'm with The Australian on this - here's the newspaper's response today.

ADF mission must be restored

• THE AUSTRALIAN
• APRIL 13, 2016 12:00AM 

The primary purpose of a national defence force is to defend the nation against enemy combatants. One of the principal threats to Australian security in the 21st century is posed by jihadism and the ideology of extremist political Islamism. Australia is at war with Islamic State, a child-killing, misogynistic and genocidal army inspired by Koranic fundamentalism. We have taken our war against Islamist terror to the Middle East and devoted hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars to defeating the jihadist threat within. Under such circumstances, citizens expect a unified defence force whose sole allegiance is to the Australian nation. Defence force chiefs appear not to have grasped the brief.

In a letter to The Australian today, defence force chiefs lodged their objection to our editorial “Military no place for tokenism”, along with unidentified coverage they consider “undermining” to their cultural change program. It appears they feel undermined by two realities we have exposed. The first is our detailed coverage of Australia’s ailing submarine fleet and the urgent need to manufacture weaponry capable of defending our shores against more militarily advanced nations. The second is our careful exposure of the ADF’s cultural change program, including activities undertaken by the navy’s adviser on Islamic affairs.

As we have reported, the Chief of Navy’s strategic adviser on Islamic cultural affairs, Captain Mona Shindy, has engaged in questionable activity as part of her official duties. Her social media was shut down after she praised Mufti Musa Ismail Menk on Twitter. Menk is a cleric so hostile to Western values he was forced to cancel a tour of British universities after describing homosexual people as “filthy”. Captain Shindy praised him on Twitter as “a source of wisdom”. Other tweets and retweets on Shindy’s account questioned foreign policy, terrorism and attitudes towards Muslim Australians. The profile was created to promote diversity in the ADF.

Under her official title, Shindy also published an article last year replete with contentious statements about Islamist terrorism. She claimed the media “overplayed” Islamic extremism by connecting terrorism and Islam. Instead, Shindy recommended “the word ‘Islam’ needs to be removed from reporting on ISIS/ISIL or Daesh”. She locates the root causes of terrorism in “a strong belief among some members of the Islamic world that certain Western governments and institutions have a specific agenda against them, treat them as ‘second class’, and act in ways and make decisions that compromise their freedom of speech and expression, human rights and civil liberties”.

Such problematic statements are not addressed in the defence force chiefs’ letter to The Australian, which omits reference to Shindy. Instead, it contains a series of motherhood statements praising the ADF’s culture of inclusion without any supporting evidence. Disturbingly, the chiefs describe military capability as an “intangible concept”. An intangible concept might be deployed to fight an abstract war against a postmodern idea but it won’t restore the submarine fleet or deter Islamic State.

The last sentence of the defence force chiefs’ letter states “our mission (is) to safeguard the security of this nation and its interests”. It is time to restore that mission to pride of place.

ENDS

Last word to The Australian's Bill leak.