New Zealand is supposed to be a democracy which practices open and transparent government. So why, when our soldiers are engaged in a firefight in Afghanistan which leaves several of them wounded, do we have to get the details second-hand from the international media? Shouldn't our government be telling us this stuff upfront, rather than trying to bury it under a cloud of secrecy?
These are New Zealand soldiers, supposedly working for us. We have a right to know what happens to them, and what they are doing in our name, so we can judge whether it is worthwhile and whether they should keep doing it. But then, that's exactly the decision this secrecy is intended to prevent us from making. By keeping us in the dark, and tightly controlling what is released, the government is seeking to manufacture our consent for this deployment. That is undemocratic, and it is wrong.
(BTW, an unredacted copy of the photo the government doesn't want you to see is here. Just a reminder that trying to control access to information that is available publicly in another country is an exercise in pure futility).
