WP: Army Withheld Details About Tillman's Death

[Pirate Smile]

Army Withheld Details About Tillman's Death
Investigator Quickly Learned 'Friendly Fire' Killed Athlete

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 4, 2005; Page A03

The first Army investigator who looked into the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan last year found within days that he was killed by his fellow Rangers in an act of "gross negligence," but Army officials decided not to inform Tillman's family or the public until weeks after a nationally televised memorial service.

A new Army report on the death shows that top Army officials, including the theater commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, were told that Tillman's death was fratricide days before the service.

Soldiers on the scene said they were immediately sure Tillman was killed by a barrage of American bullets as he took shelter behind a large boulder during a twilight firefight along a narrow canyon road near the Pakistani border, according to nearly 2,000 pages of interview transcripts and investigative reports obtained by The Washington Post.

The documents also show that officers made erroneous initial reports that Tillman was killed by enemy fire, destroyed critical evidence and initially concealed the truth from Tillman's brother, also an Army Ranger, who was near the attack on April 22, 2004, but did not witness it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/03/AR2005050301502.html

[Southsideirish]

1. The lies, the lies, always with the lies.

[saigon68]

14. Limp assed Military Liars

Ask any Vet who has done time.

This behavior in the military is rampant

98% of Officers and high ranking NCOs "COVER THEIR ASS" (Read Lie)

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. Recruitment is down 42% for April. Geez. I can't imagine why?

[sasquatch]

2. Man I hate these necrophiliac republicans

They used Pat Tillman like he was "Bearnie" on "Weekend at Bernies" and it's a damn shame because I don't think Pat would want to be used like this.

[libodem]

3. He was a good and decent man

i bet he was fraged

[catnhatnh]

4. I've had it with bullshit...

...this entire string could easily be devoted to a denigration of Pat Tillman but instead in deference to his family let us please separate the actor and his acts...Pat Tillman is a hero who walked the walk, willingly putting his ass on the line WHILE it was worth millions a year to stay home. Our government killed him in a far away and dirty place....Please never confuse the motives of a young naive hero with those of our cynical criminal administration. The life of Pat Tillman is the equal of a Washington or Jefferson, while his death was instead a worthless squandering of a national resource...

[Mika]

5. He wanted revenge..

.. for 911.

Revenge got him there (with help from _BushCrimeInc).




www.stopbolton.org

[IChing]

6. Jefferson was not naive.

"Pat Tillman died for nothing. He may have been an admirable person in many respects--we're all complicated--but he made a terrible decision by joining Bush's mercenary military after 9/11. If someone dies because they screw up behind the wheel of their car, it's a tragic accident. It's awful and we're sad--but it ain't heroism, folks ...

Mr. Tillman served an evil president and an evil cause. Anyone with an open mind after 9/11 could easily have learned the truth, that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq occured instead of a war on terror, not as part of one. A person who planned to risk his life in combat should reasonably be expected to dig a little deeper rather than to fall for Bush's transparent lies. We all judge each other, and while Tillman's decision to sacrifice millions of dollars for his beliefs is admirable, his belief that killing the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan had something to do with defending America was not. At best, Tillman was foolish and misguided ..." ted rall

http://www.rall.com/2004_05_01_archive.html#108381188814456700

[jobycom]

10. Jefferson was naive

When you get past the hagiography of the American "Revolution" you have a bunch of spoiled landowners who started a war to avoid paying higher taxes. Sure, the outcome was nice, but if two hundred years from now Iraq is a world leader and a Democratic state, will that justify Bush's invasion?

Tillman served his country. He died, if THIS article has it right, displaying a level-headed courage those in his unit lacked. To me, he's a hero.

If he supported Bush in the war, I hold that against him. But it isn't the job of a soldier to question whether his orders are right. No army could function that way. It is the job of a soldier to do what he or she is told, without regard for life, limb, or anything else. As a soldier. It is also the duty of that soldier as an American citizen to know the facts, and vote well--maybe Tillman let us down in that regard. But his actions in uniform were exemplary, and I don't give a damn how filthy the bastards who used him and threw him away are, he is still a hero.

[countmyvote4real]

7. We might need some sub-categories for LBN:

The current LBN umbrella is working just fine when it is really a new News item. However, I’m beginning to think we should have an “It Miraculously Appeared After All These Months In Main Stream Media” board. IMAAATMIMSM

Obviously, I’m open to suggestions for better names for such a board.

While this item has a current date in the WP, it is old news that doesn't even have a fresh face courtesy of a new factoid. That suggests "Faciast Media Better Late Than Never Breaking News." FMBLTNBN

Some on-the-fly alternative name:

"Will Report News For Real If You Don'T Anthrax Me" WRNFRIYDAM

"And This Time I Really Mean It" ATTIRMI

"The Bush Family Evil Empire Check Wasn't In The Mail. I'm Free At Last." TBFEECWITM-IFAL

[chalky]

8. How about "I Made it to the Bunker, So Now I Can Report The Truth"? n/m

[MisterP]

9. heck, we're the US of Amnesia:

just saw an ad from the Military Channel (aren't they all?*) about the wowie-gee story of Saddam's spiderhole (they admitted it was fake).
Some time ago, the news reported how "in Firdos Square, where jubilant crowds pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein..." (the Army admitted it did the whole thing and staged everything).
If Poppy Bush said "Yes! I killed Kennedy!" they'd forget it in four months and go back to calling the doubters of the magic bullet mentally ill again.

* Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network excepted.

[jobycom]

11. The doubters

of the "magic bullet" are mentally ill, but that's another story. The rest of your post is spot on.

[MisterP]

12. really? what with?

[jobycom]

20. Delusions of grandeur

When I started graduate school in history I was going to prove the absurdity of the Magic Bullet. I checked everything--bullet trajectories, pristine bullet theories, firing tests done with Oswald's rifle, seating arrangement in the limosine, body positions based on the Zapruder film, history of Oswald's life and recent activities. I even worked for a year for Ralph Yarborough, who was in the motorcade when Kennedy was shot, and was a close friend of JFK's.

Proved the opposite. There is no way that bullet could have done anything other than what the Warren Commission (which is wrong so often it galls me to admit it got something right) claimed it did. It came from the SBD window, it went through the back of Kennedy's shoulders, exited through the throat, then went through Connally, who was sitting inboard and lower down than JFK, and was twisting in his seat.

Any bullet that struck JFK would have had to go through him, since it didn't strike bone. There was one wound in the front, one in the back. JFK was hunched forward, so any bullet striking him in the front of the throat and exiting through his shoulder would have had to be fired from beneath him. Rules out every conspiracy position possible. The only person in front of him was Connally, and he was facing forward, but twisting slightly. One could make an argument that someone lying on the floorboard of the car fired a shot straight through Connally's wrist and chest, and it struck JFK in the throat then continued on to the SBD window, but that's just silly. We know Oswald was in the building. We know someone was firing from that window--there were three witnesses in the room below it.

Oswald fired that shot, or someone pretending to be Oswald fired that shot, from the SBD window.

Whether anyone put Oswald up to it, whether it was part of a larger plot involving LBJ or our government, I don't know. But the "Magic Bullet" is pure science. That came from where the WC claimed it did.

Interestingly, Ralph Yarborough almost always refused to talk about the assassination, because he was still hurting thirty years later because of it. I watched him get choked up trying to talk about JFK. Yarborough always claimed he had no doubt that Oswald, and only Oswald, fired the three shots, two of which struck JFK. But when asked if Oswald acted alone, he would refuse to comment. That's kind of where I am.

So I think people really want to believe really badly that there was a big conspiracy to kill JFK, because, as Jackie said, it seems wrong that he was killed by a pissant little communist (though he was more of an anarchist). And I think people are too willing to believe a lot of crap and bad speculation (save your energy, if you know about it, I've read it and considered it already) to prove that it couldn't have been that pissant little communist. But the evidence shows it was. Now the question that never gets asked, and I blame the conspiracy buffs for this, is who could have put Oswald up to it. See, I believe that if Oswald was acting for someone in the government, perhaps even LBJ, the greatest trick LBJ could pull to keep anyone from discovering that would be to convince the skeptics that Oswald had nothing to do with it. If no one looks at Oswald, no one will see why Oswald did it. It's the "Usual Suspects" syndrome: "the greatest trick the devil ever played was making people believe he didn't exist."

Or, Oswald may have acted alone, and LBJ and everyone else just got lucky. Stranger things have happened. But I've seen no evidence (and as I said, save your strength, I've seen it all) to suggest that Oswald wasn't the shooter.

I'm not going to check back on this post, btw. Every time I dump a book's worth of evidence on one of these posts I get hundreds, literally, of replies, and every one of them simply regurgitates the evidence I've already seen. I can disprove it point by point, but no one reads what I've written, they just dump the same old theories over and over, never once looking at the evidence that disprove those theories. So feel free to have the last word.

[MisterP]

31. one shouldn't rave about delusions of grandeur with a pompous,

bombastic tone.
It just doesn't work, like someone saying that they're objective.

[hvn_nbr_2]

13. self-delete

self-delete

[Voltaire99]

15. Won't anyone say the obvious? Tillman's a bloody propaganda icon.

More useful to the war party in death than in life, Tillman has been turned into the figure of a martyr and used to spectacular effect.

And why? The complete collapse of any justifiable rationale for invading Iraq has left the government and media without a fig leaf.

Symbols like Tillman--young, handsome, famous, and most importantly, dead--provide that cover.

Quite simply a failing immoral war desperately needs popular hero-martyrs: they help hide the bloodstains.

News stories of teary-eyed youth at makeshift shrines declaring Tillman "one of the greatest American heroes ever" are the vessel for carrying forward this banal propaganda, which almost never fails to mention the NFL riches he sacrificed.

The message: if this demigod can give up an NFL contract, you can give up your petty little existence to follow in his sainted footsteps.

That the government withheld the truth so long speaks to how carefully Tillman's life-after-death has been groomed. Before letting the unpleasant truth be known, Washington intended to get a lot of mileage out of that corpse.

And that they did, but the truth is out, at last. Perhaps now we can stop pretending and mourn where the trail of lies left Pat Tillman and the thousands like him equally deceived and badly used.

[mhr]

18. Ding, Ding, Ding - Give That Man A Cigar

But as we all know, people like Tillman were necessary to give Fundie Sheeple cover for debating the virtues of Bush's military adventures.

These people always have to hide behind a lie because their whole existence is based on a lie.

[TolstoyAndy]

19. Why do you hate Comrade Ogilvy?

After all that Comrade Ogilvy did, and his sacrifices for the good of the Party and our Glorious Empire, for you to doubt Comrade Rumsfeld's story is simply despicable.

(http://bigbrother.pcpm.ucl.ac.be/1984.html)

[Voltaire99]

21. Under the spreading chestnut tree...

...I sold you and you sold me.
There lie they and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree.

[Bigmack]

23. Silver star?

Has anybody explained how he got a SS for the action?
I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it, just that the whole thing deserves some explanation.
If it was a PR move by the Army or the (mis)-administration, there needs to be some bitching from the "support our troops" crowd.

[LynnTheDem]

16. Another PHOTO-OP.

Hell yeah Tillman's corpse was USED by the bushCartel for PROPAGANDA.

[Erika]

30. Yes it was

If I were the parent I'd be mad as hell.

[DrZeeLit]

22. But we're telling the truth in the Italian agent's death, right?

Sounds like exactly the same scenario, only the Italians aren't buying it...

... and I'll bet Tillman's family is not exactly feeling like being the poster parents for enlistment.

[Mark E. Smith]

24. CNN: Evidence Destroyed After Tillman's Death

CNN 5/5/05 9:31 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new Army report on the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan last year concluded that his uniform and body armor were burned a day after he was killed -- and before investigators had determined he was shot by his fellow soldiers.

The yet-to-be released investigation results, first reported by the Washington Post, concludes that the burning of the clothes and armor amounted to destruction of evidence.

Initial reports of Tillman's death on April 22, 2004, said he ws shot by Taliban forces during an ambush. An investigation would later reveal that fellow soldiers shot Tillman, thinking he was part of an enemy force firing at them.

The Washington Post reported Weds that top U.S. commanders, including Gen. John P. Abizaid of U.S. Central Command, were told that Tillman's death occurred by fratricide days before a nationally televised memorial service was held for him.

Nonetheless, Tillman's family was not notified of that until May 29, 2004, when the first investigation was completed. That was nearly four weeks after the service,

The new report, by Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, was done at the behest of Tillman's family members, who wanted to know why his uniform was burned, and why they were not immediately told he might have been killed by fellow soldiers.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/04/tillman.death/index.html

The Army could have told Tillman's family about the nature of their son's tragic death, but who among these gallant military leaders would have wanted to deprive the Bushies of an opportunity to stage so instructive a propaganda spectacle for the citizens?

[democracyindanger]

25. From what I understand

His body armor and uniform were burned because they were deemed a biohazard, and more importantly, because the soldiers there were fully prepared to acknowledge that Tillman was killed by friendly fire.

In fact, it was because the soldiers involved were about to be rotated back to the States that the Army decided to come clean about the incident--because they knew the soldiers would tell the truth.

[Erika]

26. This administration will be known as the lying administration

as its legacy. Nixon will look good compared to them.

[democracyindanger]

27. Ain't that the truth

I never thought I'd think Bush I was a decent president, but geez...

[Syncronaut Seven]

28. Bite your tounge

That foul old man spawned the antichrist.

[democracyindanger]

29. I am now convinced

that Chimpy was a spontaneous, asexual birth. See: Alien Resurrection.

[napi21]

32. Who issued the order to burn the clothes?

The unlawful act wasn't that he died by friendly fire! It was because of the COVER-UP!!! Remember, it's rerely the crime that's the real problem, but the cover-up of the evidence!

Wonder how high this one goes???