The team of Bill English and Paula Bennett, given their marching orders in John Key's valedictory, want us all to believe that the messenger should be shot and there's nothing to see here ... move on. All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
Mr Key's sudden departure was attended in some quarters with the question as to what shoe was yet to fall. Perhaps it was this one of possible misfeasance by our elite troops, but more likely it's the bills that will come due over the neglect of our social safety net during the past decades that Mr Key sought to avoid.
However, it's this one, of military honour, that rightly demands our attention now, the announcement of which -- made just as Mr Key gave his goodbye speech -- rained on his parade of past achievements.
Among those accomplishments were the orders he had proudly given for engagement in Afghanistan. Unforgettable was his shout-down to those opposed: "Get some guts!" he yelled out.
Yes, Ms Bennett, I believe in the integrity of our troops and of their intention to act in the best interests of the country.
The responsibility for their actions ultimately lies with the civilian leaders who send those honourable men and women to harm's way without establishing a reasonable basis for doing so, beyond the leadership's personal vanity.
In America, the falsehoods promoted by government about Vietnam resulted in serious distrust, which resonates to this day. When military veterans like myself spoke in opposition to the second Iraq war, our patriotism was brought into question. What truly rankles is that, for the most part, proponents of the current Afghanistan engagement, like the Iraq misadventure, are summer soldiers or worse. They have never themselves served in the military, nor have their children been at risk. Yet they boldly send others to war.
Let us be clear -- there's a reason why it is said that war is hell and that its first casualty is truth. Terrible things happen and civilians are frequently caught in the cross-hairs.
For our soldiers, the questions to be addressed include the question of recklessness or even of intention to retaliate for the death of a comrade, Lieutenant Tim O'Donnell. We need a full and complete investigation in that -- in its absence -- there remains now a cloud of suspicion over our troops.
I hope such an investigation clears our troops of charges of wilful wrongdoing. But I'd like that investigation to include the question of what we were doing there in the first place.
That ultimate responsibility belongs squarely with those civilians, led by the former PM, who have never given the country a satisfactory account that makes the sending of sons and daughters to war a necessity and not just a matter of choice to establish that we have the "guts".
�Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.
