What the hell is wrong with this picture? What is wrong is that the guys in the picture are being sent home as a punishment for being in this picture.
The girly men in the Defense Department who clearly have been emasculated after nine years of Helen Clark have taken a dim view of this photograph.
Irrespective of the investigation into whether the acts contravened military law, the NZDF sets and expects very high levels of professionalism and behaviour from its people - this is especially the case in an operational theatre where the protection of information is vital to the overall security of New Zealand interests and activities. On this occasion those standards have not been met and as a consequence these three soldiers will be returned to New Zealand at the earliest opportunity."What's that all mean? Its just double talk to hide that fact that they are being punished for being in this picture.
"Let me be very clear that this is not about a group of young soldiers just taking a photograph of themselves; soldiers have been doing this since the availability of cameras. These three are returning to New Zealand because of a series of actions and errors of judgment on their part that did not meet the standards we expect of our people."
These guys are in a War Zone for ....s sake, I know that there are some in parliament, far too many IMHO, who think they shouldn't be there and if we are to send anybody at all it should be kindy teachers to teach little Afghanistani kids that playing with guns it not nice and we should talk through our differences and so forth.
Like talking through our differences with the Taliban has ever worked.
This has to be a joke, though strangely enough I'm not laughing.
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