How bad a whitewash is the NZ government's "inquiry" into Operation Burnham? This bad:
The Afghanistan villagers at the heart of the Operation Burnham Inquiry may never have an opportunity to personally tell their stories about an incident in their town involving the New Zealand Defence Force.
[...]
In a minute released yesterday, the inquiry said travelling to Afghanistan to speak to the villagers would be a logistically challenging, time consuming and expensive process.
[...]
Financial and timing constraints did not permit the inquiry to take full evidence from the Afghanistan villagers involved in the incident, it said.
What is the point of an "inquiry" which never hears from the victims of the crime it is supposed to investigate? How can the results possibly be said to reflect the evidence, when they never bother to hear it? But then, this was never about evidence or facts or truth. Instead, it has always been about clearing the name of NZDF and sweeping its war crimes under the rug. But by being so overt about it, by simply not bothering to hear from the people they hurt, all they have done is guarantee that that stench never goes away.
