When does departmental bungling become criminal? The Australian government must fight the allegation made by Private Jake Kovco’s mother that it covered up her son’s death in Iraq in an attempt to salvage falling recruitment for an unpopular occupation.
The Howard government is, of course, extremely accomplished at deflecting responsibility.
As I see it the political consequences of and accident versus a suicide are very different.
If an accident, well accidents happen even in peacetime.
But if its suicide, then Private Kovco becomes the first casualty of Howard’s illegal war.
What’s so sickenign is how the first reactions from the right (e.g. thso n Tim Blair’s blog) is to blame anyone but the government. For example:
a) they blame the mother for daring to make a public appearance
b) they blame Mark Latham for some derogatory comment he made about recuruits a few years ago
c) they blame newspapers for being critical of the government
We have a Cndy Sheehan all over again. So much for supporting the troops.