Grim New Details In Pat Tillman Death: The Reason For Executive Privilege?
Are the details in this report part of the reason why the Bush administration has invoked executive privilege with Congress’ clamor to find out more info about former NFL player Pat Tillman’s death?
Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman’s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player’s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
“The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described,” a doctor who examined Tillman’s body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.
The doctors – whose names were blacked out – said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
Does that sound like friendly fire? Or something perhaps a bit more…deliberate?
Ultimately, the Pentagon did conduct a criminal investigation, and asked Tillman’s comrades whether he was disliked by his men and whether they had any reason to believe he was deliberately killed. The Pentagon eventually ruled that Tillman’s death at the hands of his comrades was a friendly-fire accident.
The medical examiners’ suspicions were outlined in 2,300 pages of testimony released to the AP this week by the Defense Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
And some of the other things the AP discovered to raise eyebrows:
– In his last words moments before he was killed, Tillman snapped at a panicky comrade under fire to shut up and stop “sniveling.”
–Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments.
–The three-star general who kept the truth about Tillman’s death from his family and the public told investigators some 70 times that he had a bad memory and couldn’t recall details of his actions.
– No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene – no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck.
AP then summarizes the controversy:
The Pentagon and the Bush administration have been criticized in recent months for lying about the circumstances of Tillman’s death. The military initially told the public and the Tillman family that he had been killed by enemy fire. Only weeks later did the Pentagon acknowledge he was gunned down by fellow Rangers.
In other words:
It’s one more controversy involving a credibility problem.
With questions lingering about how high in the Bush administration the deception reached, Congress is preparing for yet another hearing next week.
UPDATE: ABC News reports that the Army plans to punish some officers:
ABC News has learned that seven Army officers will receive career-ending administrative punishments for mishandling the Pat Tillman case. The Army has decided not to punish three other officers who had been accused of wrongdoing by the Pentagon inspector general.
None of the officers will face criminal charges.
The most severe punishment is planned for Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger. Kensinger is accused of misleading investigators about when he knew the truth about circumstances surrounding Tillman’s death.
Senior defense officials tell ABC that Army Secretary Pete Geren is likely to recommend that Defense Secretary Robert Gates strip Kensinger, a three-star general, of his stars, a move that would reduce Kensinger’s pension by approximately $1,000 a month.
Army officials would not confirm the punishments and cautioned that nothing had been finalized.
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58 Responses to “Grim New Details In Pat Tillman Death: The Reason For Executive Privilege?”
I rest my case.
Cos,
Let me make it simple for you. Had you stuck with the “Tillman” is not a hero argument, I wouldn’t have a problem. But you didn’t stop there. Why don’t we review, again, what you actually said near the beginning of this thread, the first in a series of comments that got me involved here in the first place:
Add to that the other aspersions and derogatory slanders you’ve cast here and on the blog post you wrote and linked to in this thread. You are slandering a dead man who served honorably, hero or not. But you go further than even that. You slander all those “like” him with the same broad, ignorant brush. Those slanders, and your obvious ignorance of the Rangers and the military, is the only reason I’m in this thread at all.
You didn’t know Tillman. You don’t know any Rangers. Your whole military experience comes from Rambo movies, and, apparently, your cousin and some limited interaction when you were a kid, which appears to be at least two decades ago. Somehow that has transformed you into an expert with the wisdom to judge people you don’t know in a profession you have no comprehension of. You are such the military expert that you make such stupid statements like the “mindsets” of people like the Rangers, people you don’t even know, “lead to Abu Ghraib or My Lai.” It’s despicable to make such comparisons when you obviously have no clue what you’re talking about.
THAT is my problem with you and has nothing to do with hero-worship or the crimes and coverups related to PFC Lynch and SPC Tillman – crimes in which both are innocent.
MW: Did George pass you the Dulcolax?
Entropy:
Again, reality check. Rangers are not GI Joe, grunting thru the desert or jungle of steppes. These are guys who are trained to do the worst possible things to the people who are enemies. These are the sorts who tell the GI Joes, ‘Stand aside, it’s time for a real man.’
To the average Joe, these guys are loathed for being arrogant pricks who look down upon GI Joes like the average CEO looks down upon the janitor of his building. These are the sorts that when they were fragged in Nam were cheered on by the Joes.
Now, you get a pretty boy celebrity who gives up millions of dollars and fame to stupidly go and play in this environment, rather than serving with the regulars- like a Ted Williams or a Jimmy Stewart did, and one cannot simply and deceptively state that stating that these guys are macho asses who are faux patriots is wrong. It simply gfoes against reality, history, and even the ways that they are viewed within the military. Sorry, and no attempt to try to turn the stating of what these guys do into some patriotic or heroic act will wash.
When we sent our CIA boys in to assassinate —– fill in the blank which world leader we got rid of in the last 6 decades, they were not being patriotic, nor were they doing anything anyone could call heroic.
Now, I’m willing to grant that the Ranger Rambo types are a step above the Underworld CIA Black Ops types, but this does not put them on an equal level with GI Joe Average.
Sorry. And I have seen about 12 minutes combined of Rambo movies. All I know of the Rangers comes from guys who were Rangers, and in other elite services of the Navt and Marines, and the grunts who loathed them for how their dickwaving machismo made the average grunts job of ‘winning hearts and minds’ so much harder.
So, don’t go presuming anything, even as you distort the history of the groups you have your banner waved under.
As for the mindsets that lead to Abu Ghraib and My Lai, it’s exactly because of the agitprop that Ranger types accept blindly that such occurs- even if they were not responsible for those two incidents. The Elites’ atrocities never make the news. Just as most Black Ops events did not.
Yes, Beaver Cleaver smiles broadly in your world, but it’s a world that never was.
And, let’s get something straight: You even admitted earlier that I was correct, and that Lynch and Tillman were not heroes. The coverups are just business as usual.
The blind acceptance of both as heroes has been my beef, and why you and others have and continue to distort.
Here is how your reply should have started:
‘Wow, you know, you are right. I guess it was my ADD that led me to read only selective parts of what yuo and others posted, so I naively assumed they were right about what you were saying. I’m sorry I assumed the wrong things. You were right all along. Pat Tillman is no hero. And thanks for mentioning Doolittle and Murphy. I’ll Google them and see what a real war hero is about.’
But, no, more puerility.
And again, ‘Why do you think Tillman generates so much news when ‘SSG Echols, SGT Acosta, SPC Mike, 1LT Prakesh’, and others do not?
Again, breathe and think.
Then, begin your next response with, ‘Gee, you know, you’re right again. In thinking about it, it’s obvious that the reason why Tillman was boostered and others not. And, in looking at the facts, he really did nothing special except give up millions of dollars. Damn, I’m just so caught up in the American myth machine that sometimes my fingers race ahead of my ideas. I’ll try to think before responding next time.’
If not. then you may as well go to the potty next to mw’s and ask him to pass the Dulcolax.
Haha! Hilarity ensues. I seriously have to wonder if this isn’t some kind of joke you’re playing. No, I suppose it isn’t.
*sigh* Yet again you attribute to me things I have never said.
I have nothing more to say – you’ve displayed your ignorance for all to see.
Entropy – Don’t you find it remarkable how easy this is, when all you have to do is hand him the rope?
Hmm….
To finish this off: MW, when your actions and deceits betray yourself, words are not necessary. And, mw, it’s funny, but I said the same thing, b4 it was removed.
The sad thing is that, unlike some other commenters here, you two cannot even lie well, and ball yourself up in knots. Anyone who’s ever known a Ranger, or a grunt who loathed one, knows reality; and that’s whether or not they agree on the Tillman issue.
But, keep spinning your lies. You need at least two for an echo chamber.
And Pavlov’s still smiling.
Look for this to fade away into the sunset as all dubious political hits. It's just another body count. There are more bodies. You would think Pat Tillman would be aware of these kinds of things especially in our country. The government is a natural evil. All that ideology he had saturated himself in which inspired him to get into the action in the armed forces was nothing but naivete. Go against the beast and you are going to pay the price. He should have laid low then came out. When you go against the dark forces go prepared. He evidently let his thoughts no matter how noble be known to those that would harm him and he paid the price. He was in their jurisdiction and not his own and he had no leverage. So if you don't like something about the beast don't let him know that in his own house. You will live longer.