Happy Veterans Day

Happy Veterans Day, Will Williams.
Your commitment to peace does us
honor.

Remember our veterans.

Know our veterans' friends, committed to treating Agent Orange and PTSD.

And our veterans' enemies, who steal from veterans while using veterans as props.

The neocons and Republicans saluting Veterans Day do so with irony, as they keep up their campaign that fraud, lies and 'government dependence' define the veterans' reentering American society.

And to AP writer, Allen Breed; are you still sticking to your story that the VA makes it's too easy for veterans to file claims and is an "open invitation to fraud," in your words?

President Obama made easier it to file and obtain PTSD disability benefits in 2010, and all the GOP hucksters and poseurs came forward.

From the Wisconsin State Journal (May 27, 2010)

In February 2010, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts questioned Assistant to the Solicitor General, Anthony Yang, in the federal benefits-related case, Astrue v. Ratliff (No. 08-1322).

Asked Justice Roberts, "In litigating with veterans, the government more often than not takes a position that is substantially unjustified?"

Yes, he was told.

Roberts found this "really startling."

Mr. Chief Justice, you're right.

What we do to our veterans is startling, and calling their benefits system an open invitation to fraud is outrageous.

Scott Walker on motorcycle at Operation Freedom event.
Walker's personal aides stole from fund meant for
veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan

On a local note, how about Scott Walker uses Veterans Day 2013 as a day to hold a listening session to explain the embezzlement from veterans and their families in Operation Freedom.

Straighten out the record, for once.

After all, stonewalling by Scott Walker's office in the embezzlement of funds from Operation Freedom did lead to the John Doe I probe, (Bice. MJS. May 31, 2012), according to the District Attorney's office which requested the John Doe probe in the first place.

Stealing from veterans. Nice.

Is Walker going to mention his buddies, felons Tim Russell (who operated Walker's 2010 Walker for Governor campaign website, ScottWalker.org) and Kevin Kavanaugh, on his new Scott Walker for Governor site, maybe apologize?

Well, I suppose the new John Doe II means Scott Walker will not be taking questions on this Veterans Day.

Republicans v. Veterans’ Jobs

The GOP and elements of the media such
as Allen Breed continue their lies that
U.S. veterans and reformist VA elements
effectively collude to commit widespread fraud.
Blaming veterans for illness and injury
has a long and shameful tradition

 Update: Video: GOP Senators Boozman, Johanns, Burr, and Toomey kill veterans' jobs bill

"A jobs bill that would support veterans is being blocked by some wacky maneuvers in the Senate [by the Republicans again]," reads a cheerful NYT editorial this morning.

Check out this NYT commentary for a revealing look at today's GOP distaste for veterans and the GOP's appalling lack of commitment to our troops and Marines.

Sen. Ron Johnson (Tea Party-Wisconsin) votes to obstruct.

"Pass the Veterans Jobs Corps so we can put more vets to work protecting and rebuilding America," demands President Obama repeatedly.


'No,' say the Tea Party and Republicans for whom even veterans are just another tool in their historic obstruction project to drive our country deeper into the ditch, no matter the costs.

"I had this conversation with a guy in the [Bush] White House, the liaison to the Department of Veterans Affairs. This was during the Bush Administration. He said, if we were to keep every promise that we made to the veterans, it would bankrupt us as a nation," said veterans' advocate, Steve Robinson, who challenged President Bush, the VA and the DoD establishment face-to-face on their shameful neglect of the health problems, especially mental-health issues, faced by returning Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans.

The GOP-Tea Party continues this Bush-Cheney legacy of giving veterans their get-lost directive.

Army Eases Guidelines Screening for Alleged PTSD Fakers in Win Against Neocons

As the political fallout in this election year continues over
Allen Breed’s AP hit job published in 2010 asserting
that U.S. veterans and reformist DVA elements
effectively collude to commit widespread fraud,
we note that blaming veterans for illness and injury
has a long tradition.

- Something's wrong, something's not quite right -

"So the brave men and women who have served in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq are honest enough to put themselves in danger in the defense of the United States, yet their sworn personal hearing testimony concerning the stressors they experienced in Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq is not. Something is seriously wrong here," writes the Paralyzed Veterans of America in their Service Officers Appeals Report (SOAR, 2004, Volume 8, Number 4).

Yes, there is something seriously wrong, but a group of reformers led by President Obama, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, Bob Walsh, Jim Davis, Anthony Hardie, and Gordon Duff and near-constant lobbying by an even smaller group of veterans' advocates (Paul Sullivan) are pushing back against the likes of AP journalist Allen Breed, Fox News, the American Enterprise Institute, and embedded, neocon bureaucrats in the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), and just about every Republican in congress who screams about the national debt after pursuing policies ensuring the debt skyrocked the last 10 years.
---

By Katie Drummond in Wired

Media attacks veterans' claims

In a big reversal, the Army has issued a stern new set of guidelines to doctors tasked with diagnosing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among returning soldiers. Stop spending so much time trying to spot patients who are faking symptoms, the new guidelines instruct.Chances are, they’re actually ailing. The 17-page document has yet to be made public but was described in some detail by the Seattle Times. In it, the Army Surgeon General’s Office specifically points out — and discredits — a handful of screening tests for PTSD that are widely used to by military clinicians to diagnose a condition estimated to afflict at least 200,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

It's no coincidence that the man at the top, President Obama, on August 10, 2005 as a young senator blasted the Bush-Cheney-Rove administration in a letter to then VA Secretary Nicholson, writing "in order to truly create fairness in the claims system, the VA should concentrate its efforts on reviewing denials of PTSD claims. Without accessing why some PTSD claims are denied, it will be impossible to fully understand how the VA’s PTSD rating system can be improved." Our veterans aren’t lying about PTSD and as Chief Justice John Roberts asked, "In litigating with veterans, the government more often than not takes a position that is substantially unjustified?" ((Astrue v. Ratliff )(08-1322)) Yes, the government does take substantially unjustified positions against veterans with the media's help, and Obama's turning this around should happen faster and more comprehensively. In light of this reality, I can't wait for Mitt Romney to tell President Obama that we cannot afford more money for the Veterans Benefit Administration (VBA) and VA, and we are going to have to give these veterans voucher-care. (Michael Leon) To understand the change that is taking place in treating PTSD, see U.S. Army Clears War of Wrongdoing on the Army's 2010 ludicrous Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, and Suicide Prevention (HP/RR/SP) Report. "I had this conversation with a guy in the [Bush] White House, the liaison to the Department of Veterans Affairs. This was during the Bush Administration. He said, if we were to keep every promise that we made to the veterans, it would bankrupt us as a nation," said veterans' advocate, Steve Robinson, who has challenged the President and the Defense establishment face-to-face on their shameful neglect of the health problems, especially mental-health issues, faced by returning Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans.

But the results of what’s known as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Test are flawed, according to the report. PTSD sufferers often exhibit anxiety, insomnia, flashbacks and depression — all of which, some doctors believe, can be discounted under the test.

Under the Bush-Cheney-Rove administration, covert war
was declared on veterans' seeking disability benefits

The test devotes a large swath of questions to catching apparent exaggerations of symptom severity, seemingly inconsistent answers, or reported symptoms that don’t mesh with the typical signs associated with an illness. “The report rejects the view that a patient’s response to hundreds of written test questions can determine if a soldier is faking symptoms,” the Seattle Times summarized.

Where PTSD is concerned, that’s especially true. The condition is accompanied by symptoms that can differ markedly between patients: Some are hyperactive, others are lethargic; some exhibit frenetic rage while others are simply sullen and depressed.

“And,” the Times continued, “[the report] declares that poor test results ‘does not equate to malingering’.” Those tests were the standard of care at Madigan Army Medical Center — which is a big deal.

Located in Takoma, Washington, Madigan isn’t just one of the military’s largest medical installations. It’s home to a forensic psychiatry team tasked with deciding whether soldiers diagnosed with PTSD were sick enough to qualify for medical retirement. In March, the Army launched an investigation of the Madigan team after Madigan’s screening procedures allegedly reversed 300 of the PTSD diagnoses among soldiers being evaluated.

The reversals resulted in some soldiers being diagnosed with “personality disorders” and others left with no diagnosis at all. Madigan allegedly used the tests to save money by limiting the number of patients who’d qualify for retirement.

“We have to ensure we are not just ‘rubber stamping’ a soldier with the diagnosis of PTSD,” reads a memo from an unnamed Madigan psychiatrist that leaked last month. “We have to be good stewards of the tax-payer dollars.”

The Surgeon General’s attempts at strengthening its PTSD diagnostic tactics might come as a relief to veterans. But they might also be more than a little too late. Shortly after the scandal at Madigan emerged, subsequent reports of similar shoddy diagnostics at Walter Reed, Fort Carson and Fort Bragg trickled out as well. Including more allegations of soldiers being pinned as malingerers by military docs.

“Leading off, trying to say it’s isolated, doesn’t really pass the common-sense test,” Patrick Bellon, executive director of Veteran’s for Common Sense, told Stars and Stripes earlier this month. “Clearly, something is not right.”

The Fallen and the Living

Updated - Saluting Veterans for Common Sense

The Wisconsin State Journal ran my response to an article by national Associated Press writer Allen Breed this month disparaging veterans' disability benefits.

The benefits system is so veteran-friendly that Breed mocks it as "an open invitation to fraud," an absurd insult to our veterans.

One wonders if neocons like Breed still really believe what they write.

A thank you to the State Journal's editorial staff on this Memorial Day weekend, honoring the fallen and those who survived as we thank the families and veterans always.

Pictured above is a shot from a Marine friend in China Beach, 1969. Makes me laugh.

But like most of the young sent off to war for lies, this dude did not come home the same guy who left. So, have a happy Memorial Day weekend and a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon or anything else brewed in Wisconsin.

PTSD Continues as Veteran Bashing Grows

by Michael Leon

As the political fallout continues over Allen Breed's AP hit job published over the weekend asserting that U.S. veterans and reformist DVA elements effectively colluding to commit widespread fraud, we note that blaming veterans for illness and injury has a long tradition.

There is a wide political coalition of forces in American politics of several parties who are proficient at waving the flag and giving lip service to our veterans, while simultaneously shafting these very same veterans, even going to far as to bad mouth and dishonor them explicitly.

This obscene veteran-bashing tradition applies emphatically to Vietnam War-era veterans, many of whom U.S. Census enumerators count this year as they encounter them with non-permanent residences, living in non-sheltered areas, i.e., homeless.

To put it a different way, membership in the Republican and Democratic parties means nothing when it comes to veterans' advocacy. A Texas libertarian like Tom Dillman of the Veterans Today's community supports veterans every bit as much as our lefties here, though we agree about little else.

Veterans Today and mal contends will have more on this story in the following days.

[VT Senior Editor and General Manager's Note: Veterans Today's managing editor and staff writer, Mike Leon, broke the story on Wisconsin Navy veteran Keith Roberts and has done much of the original reporting identifying the nexus of veterans, the U.S. Attorneys Scandal and ideological antipathy toward delivering benefits to veterans generally. Leon says, "Roberts is the tip of a very deep iceberg composed of some cold characters, one of those characters is Renée L. Szybala, the Bush administration's national DVA Director of Compensation and Pension Services during the DVA targeting of Roberts." Szybala is number two at the U.S. VA Office of General Counsel (OGC) in charge of the Ethics office. Mike Bailey, Veterans Today staff writer, veteran of the Vietnam War Era, Gulf War One, U.S. Army, Infantry, SSG, and Operation Desert Storm Medical volunteer Edgewood Arsenal 1974 (Cold War Experiments), has reportedly told a VT colleague that he promised not to drop dead after hearing that Szybala is still at the VA and is number two at OGC Ethics.]

Paul Sullivan's people over at Veterans for Common Sense have a piece knocking down Allen Breed's AP article and it is printed below in its entirety.

Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) was formed in August 2002 as a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization by war veterans who believe that we, the people of the United States of America, are most secure when our country is free, strong, and responsibly engaged with the world. Our mission, based on the pragmatic ideals of the American patriot Thomas Paine, is to raise the unique and powerful voices of veterans so that our military, veterans, freedom, and national security are protected and enhanced, for ourselves and for future generations.

PTSD Is Real, PTSD Fraud Is Not
Written by VCS
May 3, 2010, Washington, DC (VCS) - Last weekend, the Associated Press printed an incomplete and inaccurate article about veterans who file disability claims against the Veterans Affairs Department (VA) for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The AP wrote, “The problem: The [VA claims] system is dysfunctional, an open invitation to fraud. And the VA has proposed changes that could make deception even easier.”The AP is wrong, and VCS asked AP to correct the story.

Here are two very important facts the AP overlooked. If AP had included these two facts, then readers would understand more about VA and veterans suffering with PTSD after deploying to the brutal Iraq and Afghanistan wars, sometimes two or three times.

Fact Number One. There is no widespread fraud problem at VA. Out of more than one million claims per year, less than a score are ever investigated for fraud.Furthermore, in November 2005, VA auditors randomly selected 2,100 PTSD claims. After an exhaustive investigation, VA found zero cases of fraud. VA has extensive methods to prevent fraud, contrary to AP's baseless assertion.

VA’s investigation began when a reporter at the Chicago Sun Times observed that VA pays different average amounts in disability benefits based on a state-by-state comparison. The true culprit: poor leadership, staff shortages, and a lack of consistent training. VA Secretary Shinseki is taking bold steps to address these challenges, and he has broad support among veterans’ groups.

A few people opposed to healthcare and benefits for our veterans have attacked PTSD in the past. VA Watchdog wrote an op-ed about this, and Boston Review published a news article.

The AP article was a disservice to veterans as it may perpetuate stereotypes of veterans with PTSD as frauds, when the science shows they are not. At VCS we encourage our veterans with PTSD symptoms to seek care from VA. They may have to wait and wade through red tape, yet we are working hard to fix that, too.

Fact Number Two. The standards for reviewing PTSD claims won’t be “loosened” as AP asserted without attribution.

VA and independent scientists overwhelmingly agree, the diagnosis of PTSD is very real. Our goal at VCS is for the scientific evidence to match VA’s rules for obtaining disability benefits and healthcare.

Here’s what independent scientists found. In 2007 the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Science reviewed scores of peer-reviewed and published scientific studies and validated PTSD. In VCS July 2007 Congressional Testimony describing how the previous Administration fought against PTSD healthcare and benefits for our veterans.

PTSD is a very real and very serious problem increasing in scope the longer the current wars continue. The scientific challenges understanding PTSD are similar to the many years scientists and VA took to recognize disabilities associated with Agent Orange / dioxin poisoning among Vietnam War veterans. Science is now catching up.

This important regulatory victory for veterans, based on decades of peer-reviewed, published scientific research, represents a bold, pro-veteran improvement by VA Secretary Erik Shinseki to open the doors for benefits and treatment to hundreds of thousands of deserving veterans suffering years or decades with PTSD who earned and who need VA assistance.

In our view, PTSD is real, and charges of PTSD fraud are not.

U.S. Troops Are Technically War Criminals, Fearing Hostile VA

by Michael Leon

Just off the phone with a veteran who told me U.S. soldiers and Marines often take pictures in war zones [such as they are] of enemy dead in violation of various articles of the Geneva Conventions. Guys figure they'll have an easier time with the VA if they have pictures of the dead (if they make it out) that they can file with VA documents.

Veterans' fathers, their grandfathers (and women too) know the story about the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (DVA), a predatory and dysfunctional agency that denied their family's health and lives.

We hope it's changing, but the VA ain't your friend, especially if you're a Vietnam-era veteran:

But the DVA does have it share of defenders: The kindest thing these defenders are called by veterans are "chickenhawks," "house cats," and "pukes."

One of the DVA's friends is AP national writer, Allen Breed.

Breed defends the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (DVA) and the U.S. Dept of Justice (DOJ) who went after Wisconsin Navy veteran Keith Roberts in 2004 for blowing the whistle on the DVA's shredder-gate scandal in the most undiplomatic way possible: Repeated obscenities.

I broke the story on Roberts on few years' back; but Roberts is the tip of the iceberg of systemic mistreatment of our veterans.

Readers have seen saturation coverage of the deficiencies and hostilities of the DVA and embedded neocons in these pages.

Reviewing Allen Breed's national AP hit job on U. S. veterans and reformist elements at the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (DVA), there is a danger in writing a follow-up piece asking for comment from veterans.

Namely, Breed's assertions that disability claims are being handled too "quickly, humanely, and mostly in the vets' favor" present a risk that veterans may just stroke out in righteous anger when asked their opinion of these statements. I don't want cause an activist veteran his or her life. Not kidding.

As axiomatic to veterans as the oath they swore to defend the U.S. Constitution is the reality that a veteran filing a disability benefit claim encounters the VA's 'deny-delay-and-hope-you-die' culture.

How bad is the disability claim process?

The long document that a claimant must fill out [over one-million claims were filed in 2009, predicted to grow by the 100,000s] will more than likely be denied or delayed by a some claims specialist at the Veterans Benefit Administration (VBA), like Mark Rogers quoted by writer Breed.

Rogers makes the absurd statement, unchallenged by any source Breed presents, that all a veteran has to do is "lie" and they can easily obtain "100 percent disability compensation."

Breed's editor has a nice shot of the VBA bureaucrat, posing before the camera like he's actually proud of the mess he's makes veterans slog through.

As Mike Bailey writes over at Kos, "I have spent years advocating for veterans and their families. I am used to the major news agencies that report just facts and leave opinion pieces to others to write, Reuters, AP even Bloomberg News, but this [Breed's] is the most opinionated piece I have ever seen from the AP."

For a benefits process that hums along so "quickly [and] humanely," there sure seems like a lot of suicides; see the Unseen Enemy: Corps had military’s highest rate in 2009.

Speaking of unseen enemies, they're not just embedded bureaucrats at the VBA, or pencil-necks at the the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the enemy of the veteran is in the press as well.

Writes Breed, "No one knows the full extent of PTSD fraud. But there have been some hints."

Here's a hint for you, Breed: Our sworn veterans deserve the benefit of the doubt and one hell of a lot more than that.

AP: VA Makes It's too Easy for Veterans to File Claims ... Seriously

By Michael Leon

Updated - As PTSD claims soar, the systemic problem at the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (DVA) is the ease with which veterans file for disability benefit claims, in the view of Allen Breed, a national writer for the Associated Press.

This is a hit job on veterans and the progress being contemplated by some at the DVA (VA) to help veterans.

Do you have that? Things are too easy for veterans dealing with the VA now, asserts the AP's Breed.

Moved by a huge tide of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress, Congress has pressured the Department of Veterans Affairs to settle their disability claims — quickly, humanely, and mostly in the vets' favor.

Continues Breed in his piece, PTSD cases rise and rules for claims ease, VA warned that more frauds will slip through: "The problem: The system is dysfunctional, an open invitation to fraud. And the VA has proposed changes that could make deception even easier."

That's the issue and it's political.

No deny-delay-and-hope-you-die culture at the DVA, just too many veterans taking advantage of "profitably working the levers of sympathy for the wounded and obligation to the troops, and exploiting the sheer difficulty of nailing a surefire diagnosis of a condition that is notoriously hard to define."

No years waiting on a claim, it's the ease with which veterans navigate the system now that is the real issue.

This is just crazy.

Stated Atty Robert Walsh at oral arguments in a federal criminal case cooked up by the VA and DOJ in October 2007 against a Navy veteran:

... (I)t's a total distortion in this record, and any suggestion that any veteran can just walk into the V.A., file a claim and say, you know, a peace time Veteran, that I was here in the states and I was sexually assaulted, and it's stressful, give me money. And the (VA’s) answer is, did you tell the chaplain, did you go to the hospital, did you confide in a family member, do you have a contemporaneous letter, do you have documentation? ‘No, I was embarrassed’. Then the claim fails. Your own statement, no matter how compelling the argument, how tragic the circumstances, is not going to be the basis of an award of PTSD.

Breed disagrees.

No "system stack[ed] deck against injured soldiers by forcing them to prove they have post-traumatic stress disorder [PTST,’ (Marine Corp Times (Kelly Kennedy, April 5, 2007)).

PTSD

The only reason that PTSD is "hard to define" is the DVA's contrived definition and the VA's systemic barriers to proving its existence in our veterans.

This is axiomatic to any veteran's advocate, but evidently eludes Breed. He did not talk to Paul Sullivan at Veterans for Common Sense or any other veteran in these pages who could have set him straight.

Let's get back to Wisconsin Navy veteran Keith Roberts (covered in these pages) targeted by the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) in 2003-05, who became the central figure in an Alice-in-Wonderland tale, after U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic of Wisconsin and top VA officials schemed to convict Roberts’ of fraudulently receiving VA benefits (by wire transfer as the VA requires).

Breed quotes the prosecution approvingly, taking the VA's and CAVC's (U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims) positions at face value as though these institution have a shred of credibility.

The basis of the prosecution: Holland and Roberts were not friends (an assertion knocked down) it was divined after 35 years by VA cops, after the death of Roberts' friend and fellow airman.

The VA cop. Raymond Vasil of a VA regional Inspector General's office. found that Navy veterans could not recall the presence of a given person 35 years later as another man lay being slowly crushed to death. No kidding.

Navy veteran Keith Roberts filed a claim, several claims as he learned how, and then listened to his veteran service officer and asked for retroactive awarding of his benefits to his discharge.

Roberts often screamed at the Milwaukee VA regional office that they were illegally altering his C-File, his claims file. He was right. But they turned around and charged him with fraud.

The case had drew the attention of Harper's magazine contributor and human rights attorney, Scott Horton, after the U.S. Attorneys' scandal broke during the Bush administration:

(T)ake a look at another prosecution brought in Wisconsin against a wounded vet, whose claims for benefits was turned into a criminal prosecution for wire fraud. As Wisconsin Public Radio reports,Keith Roberts, a Navy veteran got into the U.S. attorney’s crosshairs by filing a claim for benefits related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnosed as occurring because he witnessed and tried to prevent his friend from being crushed to death by a C-54 airplane while stationed at a Naval air base in Naples, Italy 1969, and unrelated assault by the Navy Shore Patrol—granted and then denied, has not yet been decided by the CAVC. But the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) after being accused of fraud in 2003 by Roberts ignored the CAVC process and investigated and asked that Roberts be prosecuted for fraud by the US Attorney’s office.

The prosecution smacks of retaliation and a plan to suppress veterans claims—Roberts was prosecuted for tenaciously pursuing a claim for benefits, which VA resisted and which is still in the benefits review process. It may be that the veteran is making claims which shouldn't be granted, but the decision to resist them by a criminal complaint is very heavy handed. What happens if the Veterans’ Appeals process rules for Roberts? As I read these papers, that seems possible. ...

Who knows? Roberts's case now is being appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and we can expect a decision in a few years.

In reading Breed's piece, a rare national piece on the processes at the VA, I cannot for the life of me believe he reports that VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki is making things too easy by proposing new rules.

Breed cites the Board of Veterans Appeals and CAVC on decisions made against veterans without comment and context.

This is like asking Karl Rove for his objective opinion of President Obama's performance. Did Breed talk to any member of the CAVC bar board off-the-record on the opinion?

And of course, Breed essentially takes the position of the chickenhawks at the American Enterprise Institute's (AEI) like Dr. Sally Satel who ridicules veterans diagnosed with PTSD, a view that has permeated the Dept of Veterans Affairs, though the proposed changes are bemoaned by Breed's sources.

See the Post: "Psychiatrist Sally Satel, who is affiliated with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said an underground network advises veterans where to go for the best chance of being declared disabled. The institute organized a recent meeting to discuss PTSD among veterans."

Don't you think it's odd that VA investigators ordered by top VA officials pulled this prosecution?

Why not mention the political environment?

Roberts was targeted by the US Dept of Veterans Affairs (VA) in 2003-05, and became the central figure in this Alice-in-Wonderland tale, after U.S. Attorney Stephen Biskupic of Wisconsin and top VA officials schemed to convict Roberts’ of fraudulently receiving VA benefits (by wire transfer as the VA requires).

Veterans’ advocates know well Roberts is a victim of a vigorous attempt to marginalize, investigate, and prosecute veterans receiving disability benefits in an aborted attempt to fabricate a fraud crisis among veterans who were injured and traumatized during their service to their country.

As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars produce 100,000s more wounded veterans—a phenomenon that is was the subject of an unprecedented class action law suit by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan against the VA [dismissed but its allegations found as fact}—advocates allege that Roberts’ extraordinary prosecution was part of the Bush administration’s priorities to discourage VA disability benefits claims, especially among Vietnam-era veterans, serving to carry out the American Enterprise Institute (AEI)/Bush policy that demeans veterans for seeking help with PTSD in what the AEI derisively brands a “culture of trauma.”

The Pentagon has gone so far as to blame veterans “personality disorders” and lack of faith in God for veterans suffering after service. [A VA May 1, 2008 e-mail obtained via FOIA request reveals, that because of “compensation seeking veterans,” VA staff should “refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out” and they should “R/O [rule out] PTSD” and consider a diagnosis of “Adjustment Disorder” instead.

One administration initiative to investigate 72,000 cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was halted in 2005 after a storm of outrage from veterans’ groups and Democrats, including the then Senator Obama.

Here's how Breed concludes his piece without casting a single doubt on the Roberts prosecution, ignoring why he was a political target, or even quoting a knockdown from one source on his thesis that the VA is taking it too easy on veterans now-a-days:

But investigators later determined that Roberts didn't even participate in the rescue effort and was not as close to Holland as he'd claimed. The Board of Veterans Appeals said the VA's regional office "simply conceded" Roberts' claims "without obtaining credible supporting evidence."

After losing his benefits, Roberts was convicted of wire fraud, sentenced to 48 months in prison and ordered to pay $262,943.52 in restitution. Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims concluded in a 45-page ruling that Roberts "committed fraud in securing VA benefits for his PTSD" and affirmed the BVA's decision to sever them.

In a recent telephone interview, the 62-year-old veteran denied that he lied, but argued that under VA rules, he could have PTSD from merely being "vicariously aware of the situation."

When asked whether the new rule would throw open the doors to more fraud, Shinseki stressed the need for more research into PTSD and traumatic brain injury, the war on terror's other "signature" wound.

"I know if we take your temperature and you're registering at 102 degrees, you've got a fever, and there are ways to cope with that," the VA secretary told the AP. "PTSD and TBI are in need of the same kind of metrics."
___

AP Writer Kimberly Hefling in Washington, D.C., also contributed to this report. Allen G. Breed, a national writer for The Associated Press based in Raleigh, N.C., can be reached at features@ap.org.

Actually, investigators never proved a thing. But after 35 years, Roberts couldn't prove anything either, so he must be a criminal, the IG and DoJ reasoned.

It turns out, the federal government can make a jury in northern Wisconsin believe just about anything.

- elements of this story were previously published -