Major General Antony Anderson’s appointment as the 10th chief of defence staff of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) is as timely as his very encouraging promise to ensure that the prime minister gets his support.

According to Friday’s edition of the Daily Observer, Mr Anderson, who replaced Major General Stewart Saunders on Thursday, expressed the hope to lift the burden on Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s portfolio as minister of defence through the provision of a defence force that is of high quality and professionalism.

“…one (defence force) that can carry out a range of operations in pursuit of our national interest and to protect the well-being of our citizens,” he said.

A lot of very nice words and sentiments about the nation’s well-being were expressed at Thursday’s function.

However, we would like to suggest that none of them can mean anything unless the ultimate broker of administrative power in this country does the right thing when the right time comes.

There’s no need at this point to go into details, because the very damaging defamation suit that attorney Mr Harold Brady has filed against the prime minister is likely to make anything we could possibly say about the several unanswered questions concerning the scandal that was ‘Dudusgate’ redundant.

How much better might things have been for the prime minister if he had only heeded the numerous earlier warnings by this space to come clean on the whole sordid affair that saw him compromising himself and the country for the better part of a year on behalf of Mr Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, who — in what must be the bitterest of ironies — waived his right to an extradition hearing here as soon as it became clear that the gig was up, and opted for custody in the United States, pending trial on drug and gun-running charges.

How much better might things have been for the Jamaica Labour Party if it had opted to pick up the pieces and move forward in unison instead of this attempt to throw Mr Brady to the proverbial wolves.

How much better might things have been for the people of Tivoli Gardens, indeed all of us, if the prime minister had heeded the words of somebody… anybody, with the guts to tell him to straighten up and fly right when the US made its extradition request for Mr Coke in 2008.

As we have said so many times before, the entire story of how and why the prime minister attempted to defend Mr Coke is going to come out, one way or the other, no matter what anyone does to hide it. The only thing standing between now and then is the volume of humiliation that will accompany the ongoing catalogue of failed attempts to cloak it.

We expect that the new head of the JDF will have the prime minister’s ear.

It is our hope that he will take a comprehensive approach to his honourable intentions to lighten the prime minister’s burden, not just with the production of a professional army, but with the good advice that must be attributable to his 27 years of experience in the JDF.