Faced with foreign media reports that the SAS had been involved in yesterday's gun battle in Kabul, the government's first response was to deny it and claim they were not involved:
Defence Force spokesman Kristian Dunne said five regular army soldiers from New Zealand attached to the International Security Assistance Force forces were on the ISAF base at the time and were not involved. The base went into lockdown during the attack.
Thanks to the Prime Minister, we now know that was not true. So why did they lie to us? Why is it their instinctive response? Does our Defence Force have that little respect for us as citizens that they think we ought to mushroomed, kept in the dark and fed shit, about what our military is doing in our name overseas?
The Defence Force needs to learn that we live in a democracy. What they do is our business, and if they do things without reference to us, in secret, or against our wishes, then those acts lack any democratic legitimacy.
