Somehow I don't feel very celebratory

What Blue Girl said.

Put on your tinfoil bonnet with the blue ribbons on it...

Maybe you haven't put on your tinfoil hat in a while. Maybe it's buried deep in your closet, behind all the half-pairs of globes, the old acrylic knit mufflers with lint-pills all over them and the old holiday wreath you decided you didn't like anymore and are just waiting till it's warm enough to hold a garage sale so you can see if someone else might be willing to pay a quarter for it. But I think it's time to take it out.

Remember Dr. David Kelly? He was the U.N. weapons inspector who doubted the claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and later showed up "suicided" in a park near his home. His death was, in fact, ruled a suicide, despite the fact that first responders at the scene doubted that he had taken his own life.

Larisa Alexandrovna has unearthed this little tidbit of tinfoiliana:

A highly unusual ruling by Lord Hutton, who chaired the inquiry into Dr Kelly's death, means medical records including the post-mortem report will remain classified until after all those with a direct interest in the case are dead, the Mail on Sunday reported.

And a 30-year secrecy order has been placed on written records provided to Lord Hutton's inquiry which were not produced in evidence.

The Ministry of Justice said decisions on the evidence were a matter for Lord Hutton. But Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who has conducted his own investigations into Dr Kelly's death, described the order as "astonishing".

Dr Kelly's body was found in woods close to his Oxfordshire home in 2003, shortly after it was revealed that he was the source of a BBC report casting doubt on the Government's claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction capable of being fired within 45 minutes.

An inquest was suspended by then Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, who ruled that Lord Hutton's inquiry could take its place. But in the event, the inquiry focused more on the question of how the BBC report came to be broadcast than on the medical explanation for Dr Kelly's death.

Lord Hutton's report in 2004 concluded that Dr Kelly killed himself by cutting an artery in his wrist. But the finding has been challenged by doctors who claim that the weapons inspector's stated injuries were not serious enough.

One of the doctors seeking a full inquest, former assistant coroner Michael Powers, told the Mail on Sunday he had seen a letter from the legal team of Oxfordshire County Council explaining the unusual restrictions placed by Lord Hutton on material relating to his inquiry.

The letter states: "Lord Hutton made a request for the records provided to the inquiry, not produced in evidence, to be closed for 30 years, and that medical (including post-mortem) reports and photographs be closed for 70 years."

...and asks:

If Dr. Kelly committed suicide, then his medical records should not be sealed as there is no reason to seal them. If, however, Dr. Kelly was murdered, then the sealing of the medical records only adds more weight to what most reasonable people already suspect actually happened.

Someday, long after ALL of us are dead, perhaps the truth about the extent of the Bush Administration/Tony Blair crimes to gin up a war in Iraq will be known. But between this astonishing ruling and the lack of will to hold these criminals to account, even here in the U.S., where a kid can be put away for years for smoking pot, it's clear that what Nixon said is de facto true: When the president does it, then it is not illegal.

Unless he's a Democrat, of course. Then all bets are off.

Oh...you mean just like ours

The US-backed Iraqi government has learned well from the Bush Administration how to screw over its veterans:

In the United States, the issue of war injuries has revolved almost entirely around the care received by the 30,000 wounded American veterans. But Iraqi soldiers and police officers have been wounded in greater numbers, health workers say, and have been treated far worse by their government.

A number of the half-dozen badly wounded Iraqis interviewed for this article said they had been effectively drummed out of the Iraqi security forces without pensions, or were receiving partial pay and in danger of losing even that. Coping with severe injuries, and often amputations, they have been forced to pay for private doctors or turn to Iraq’s failing public hospitals, which as recently as a year ago were controlled by militias that kidnapped and killed patients — particularly security personnel from rival units.

No one knows the exact number of wounded Iraqi veterans, as the government does not keep track. In a 2006 report by the Congressional Research Service, Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson, the American commander in charge of Iraqi police training, said that in just two years, from September 2004 to October 2006, about 4,000 Iraqi police officers were killed and 8,000 were wounded.

That number does not include soldiers in the Iraqi Army, who are far more numerous than the police and, Iraqi commanders say, have suffered injuries at a far greater rate.

In a February 2006 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, the report states, Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the secretary of defense, said that Iraqi security forces were being killed and wounded at “roughly twice the rate of all coalition forces.” If that rate held up, the number of wounded Iraqi veterans might well surpass 60,000.

Iraqi government officials say that the wounded are being treated well, and that a law providing for veterans’ care is being drafted. In the interim, they said, wounded veterans will receive their full salaries from the Ministry of Defense.

“The wounded soldiers from the M.O.D. still get their salaries after the incidents, depending on the reports from the medical committees,” said a spokesman for the Defense Ministry, Staff Maj. Gen. Muhammad al-Askari. “We are waiting for the Service and Pension Law for the veterans from the Iraqi Parliament, but they still get paid during that time.”

The veterans interviewed for this article disputed General Askari’s statement and said they were paid only a small fraction of their salaries, or nothing at all. They described the government’s treatment of them as at best indifferent and at worst vindictive.

The Iraqi government has learned well from the VA here in the United States, which is responsible for:

• Suggesting that VA doctors avoid making a diagnosis of PTSD in order to save disability pay
  
• Opposing the GI Bill unless it's pegged to a long period of service. A Pentagon spokesman suggested six years.
  
• Treating returning veterans like this:
  
  

What is it going to take for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to be tried for war crimes?

Democracy

Adding Insult To Injury

Houston Chronicle:

Short of Purple Hearts, Navy tells vet to buy own

PEARLAND — Korean War veteran Nyles Reed, 75, opened an envelope last week to learn a Purple Heart had been approved for injuries he sustained as a Marine on June 22, 1952.

But there was no medal. Just a certificate and a form stating that the medal was "out of stock."

"I can imagine, of course, with what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, there's a big shortage," Reed said. "At least, I would imagine so."

The form letter from the Navy Personnel Command told Reed he could wait 90 days and resubmit an application, or buy his own medal.

After waiting 55 years, however, Reed decided to pay $42 for his own Purple Heart and accompanying ribbon — plus state sales taxes — at a military surplus store.

If this bullshit doesn't piss you off, you're a ghoul.

What the fuck is next, huh? Are soldiers gonna have to buy their own ammo and Humvees?