Jon Krakauer: Gen. McChrystal's Explanation For Pat Tillman Cover-up

[democracy1st]

Run time: 03:07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEqzSnhdVIw   Posted on YouTube: November 02, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: November 02, 2009 By DU Member: democracy1st Views on DU: 1616

 
From NBC's Meet The Press: Jon Krakauer: General McChrystal's Explanation For Pat Tillman Cover-up Is "Preposterous" - 11/01/09




Little attention has been paid to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's back-story and his rise to the height of military command of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Before becoming the voice of gravity and a champion of higher troop levels in the eight-year long war, McChrystal's resume was sullied by a controversy in that same theater: the misclassified death of Pat Tillman.

McChrystal was the head of Special Operations command in Afghanistan during Army Ranger (and former football star) Pat Tillman's death. McChrystal was the one who approved paperwork awarding Tillman a Silver Star despite knowing (or at least suspecting) that he had died in fratricide and not, as originally determined, enemy fire.

This was once a big embarrassment for the army and, to a lesser extent, McChrystal himself (though he has copped to making an innocent mistake). But when the general was elevated to top spot in Afghanistan this past spring, relatively few publications revisited the affair.

That may change. On Sunday, journalist Jon Krakauer joined the Meet the Press panel to discuss his new book on Tillman's death called Where Men Win Glory. Krakauer offered a harsh assessment of McChrystal's conduct during that period and even stressed that the General's explanations upon reflection were "preposterous" and "unbelievable."



Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/01/jon-krakauer-mcchrystals_n_341545.html


'Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman' by Jon Krakauer

Pat Tillman, unlikely football hero and unlikelier warrior, went to Afghanistan and got accidentally wasted by the men in his own Ranger platoon. It happens. Among the many shadows Jon Krakauer illuminates in his compelling and dispiriting book, "Where Men Win Glory," is the commonness of fratricide in high-tech warfare. Thus the military's bleak poetry of misadventure: FUBAR, SNAFU, Charlie-Fox.

But the story here isn't Tillman's unexceptional death, or exceptional life for that matter, but what Krakauer sees as a political crime committed by the Bush administration's propaganda machine as it tried to make Tillman a martyr in the global war on terror.

Tillman saw it coming. In a moment of foreboding, he said to a friend: "I don't want them to parade me through the streets." And yet that's exactly what happened.

From the day Tillman enlisted in June 2002, the Pentagon's perception managers coveted his story: the granite-chinned NFL star who walked away from millions to fight for his country after 9/11. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld -- who had opened the clandestine Office of Strategic Influence in October 2001 and was the Pentagon's most enthusiastic propagandist -- sent Tillman a laudatory note and advised Secretary of the Army Thomas White to "keep an eye on him."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/afghanistan/la-et-book11-2009sep11,0,628992.story

[truedelphi]

1. If you want to value Honesty, then you have to value Peace.

War and dishonesty go together like vultures and dead meat.

[Hulk]

2. Oh no! Don't you go talking about McChrystal like he's less than a god.

The right wing won't have any of that. That's "unpatriotic". That's "siding with the enemy." This might just take a little of the "god factor" out of this general and make him appear a bit mortal.

The neocon chickenhawks won't have ANY of that.!!

[Hamlette]

3. has anyone read the book? I bought it but I can't bring myself to read it.

afraid it will bum me out. I know that's not a good reason not to read it but after the last 8 years, I'm on outrage overload.

[tularetom]

4. Read it - you already know most of the bullshit that took place

The book will fill in the details. But it WILL piss you off. If you are a parent you will never let your kid enlist in the military. What was done to Pat Tillman and especially his family was criminal. Nobody associated with it should be honored or glorified.

[olegramps]

5. I used to think that the Russian Generals looked preposterous.

They had rows on rows of big medals for the "heroic" service to the mother land. Today's American Generals look like the counterpart of NASCAR drivers. Their decorations are as phony as those that are worn by the aristocracy and look just as ridiculous.

[rollingrock]

6. Criminal cover-up

Why isn't McChrystal behind bars? I have to question the judgment of any president who takes advice on military matters from this liar. Pat Tillman's family certainly knows McChrystal is not to be trusted, and has no credibility whatsoever.

[JDPriestly]

7. Taking McChrystal at his word and assuming that he did not read the

memo carefully enough, why should anyone trust him to carefully read or consider any other memo or information that he has a duty to read or consider? I understand that everyone makes mistakes. Certainly I make many of them. But McChrystal had the time to read that memo carefully. Assuming him to be at least an honest man, the fact that he did not read it carefully and had to admit that fact makes me question whether he is the right man for his job. He has the lives of American soldiers and Afghani people in his hands. We all make mistakes. Why was the memo so poorly written in the first case (assuming that McChrystal is telling the truth)? What kinds of people does he select to work for him?

[hmorehead]

8. It wasn't freindly fire, it was a fragging.

[NAO]

9. fragging = intentional assassination by one's fellow soldiers

for those who are not familiar with the term.

Tilman voiced questions about the war's justification; he was in correspondence with Noam Chomsky; he was an outspoken atheist in an openly aggressive evangelical christian military.

[hmorehead]

10. unfriendly fire from friendly forces.