Robert Scheer, L.A. Times:
Although Pat Tillman, 27, was shot to death on a mountain pass in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004, his family has been tortured ever since by a pattern of official deception over how he died -- killed by U.S. Army machine-gun fire -- and why the family was kept in the dark.
More below the fold:
I 'searched' diaries on this column by Robert Scheer in today's L.A. Times, but did not find any specifically about this column. If there has been one, I will gladly take this down.
I did read the excellent diary by Maccabee (also here.) describing the pattern of deception by this administration.
Mr. Scheer's writes that the Army still hasn't come clean. Mr. Scheer met with Mrs. Tillman, Pat's mother, and she is not buying the Army's attempts to close the door on this lie. She wants to know why the Army waited 5 weeks, until after the nationally televised memorial service, to provide a six-volume report (still not released to the public) on the incident, and only when other troops started to come home and the story began to unfold.
The documents that Mary Tillman is referring to are gathered in a six-volume record of the military's investigation, which were recently made available to the family but not to the media or public. Although heavily redacted, including one wholly censored volume, the files I have read make unmistakably clear that the true cause of Tillman's death was known in the field shortly after he was killed and reported as fratricide up through the military command. Yet those facts were systematically kept from the family -- including Pat's brother and fellow Army Ranger, Kevin Tillman, who was serving in the same unit in Afghanistan -- while a markedly inaccurate story played itself out in the world's media.
The publicly unreleased files also present major contradictions of fact and logic as to how this fratricide occurred, including questions about the decision to split Tillman's unit; why the shooting continued even after the identification of the target as friendly by the driver of the attack vehicle; what were the light conditions and distances involved; what was the medical treatment administered; and how was it decided to burn Tillman's clothes and body armor, which bore tell-tale markings of penetration by U.S. ammunition.
None of this is to denigrate the heroic life Pat Tillman led, nor to tarnish the Silver Star he received. As discussed in becca00's diary, I agree that this whole thing has just been screwed up so bad by this Admininistration, the furthest thing I would want to do is bring any more grief to this family.
From yesterday's Milwaukee Journal comes a story of John Mattek Jr., with some similarities to Tillman. Another young man, who loved his country, whose heroic life was cut short by the NeoCon agenda of Mideast war games.
Matt Prickette, one of Mattek's college friends, said the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, changed Mattek's life. After the attacks, he said, Mattek was angry. He felt like he wasn't doing enough with his life, just studying and playing football in college, and he decided to enlist in the Marines.
"He wanted to be in the infantry," Prickette said. "He wanted to know how soon he could be out on the front lines."
<snip>
Mattek was president of his class when he was a freshman, sophomore and senior. He also was a captain of the football team when he was a senior linebacker, was among those in his class voted most likely to succeed, and, was junior year homecoming king ...
Jim Hoagland, in yesterday's Washington Post writes:
The Bush administration risks having more Americans ask, "What are we doing in Iraq and Afghanistan?" than, "How are we doing in Iraq and Afghanistan?"
When Dick Cheney says the insurgency is in their last throes and fighting will stop before the end of the Bush Administration, I get a snarky grin and think to myself that the Bush Administration is in their last throes, and the insurgency (Webster:"a condition of revolt against a recognized government") will be led by us.