Well, Socialist, I suppose it's only appropriate that I post a copy of the letter I penned to the Australian in response to Pilger's missive. It was published on 29 June, and it blows your argument and Pilger's apologia out of the water:

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"In his letter (29/6), John Pilger accuses me of a multitude of sins, ranging from “wilful distortions” to “slanderous accusation[s].” My most serious transgression, according to Pilger, is the assertion that he actively advocates the deaths of American, British and Australian soldiers serving in Iraq.

But, trying to deny the undeniable is a dangerous game for someone with a paper trail the length of John Pilger’s. In the 28 January 2004 edition of Green Left Weekly, Pilger was asked whether he supported “Iraq’s anti-occupation resistance.” Pilger responded with an unequivocal “Yes I do. We cannot afford to be choosy.”

In his infamous Lateline interview a few weeks later, Pilger made clear what he meant by this inability to be selective. Host Tony Jones posed essentially the same question, expressed in more direct language shorn of all euphemism. “Can you approve, in that context,” asked Jones, “the killing of American, British or Australian troops who are in the occupying forces?” Pilger answered, “Well yes, they’re legitimate targets.”

In his letter, Pilger declares his longstanding opposition to “the killing of innocent people.” The problem is that Pilger doesn’t consider Aussie Diggers serving in Iraq to be innocent at all.