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Paging Mr. Orwell. In explaining why
the Army was finally launching a criminal investigation of the
April 2004 friendly fire death of NFL star-turned-Army-Ranger
Pat Tillman, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter
Pace sighed, "Although there is no evidence there was criminal
activity the investigators did not specifically look at whether
there was criminal activity. In other words, the previous four
investigations were flawless except for the fact that they didn,t
investigate anything. Now the Army has committed publicly to
reexamining the circumstances around Pat Tillman,s death as a
formal criminal probe.
The reopening of the case represents
a triumph for the Tillman family, particularly Pat,s parents
Patrick Sr. and Mary, who have been pushing for a criminal probe
for almost two years.
Mary Tillman told the Washington
Post Saturday, "The military has had every opportunity to
do the right thing and they haven't. They knew all along that
something was seriously wrong and they just wanted to cover it up."
Patrick Sr. has also said,
in the past, "They purposely interfered with the investigation,
they covered it up. [T]hey realized that their recruiting efforts
were going to go to hell in a handbasket if the truth about his
death got out. They blew up their poster boy."
Both Tillmans have remained
convinced that there was an extensive and significant cover up
around Pat,s death and they don,t need an investigation to tell
them so. What they want to know is why. They want to know why
it took five weeks for the military to tell them the truth after
Pat died. They want to know why Pat,s journal, which he had kept
assiduously for years, was destroyed in the aftermath of his
death. They want to know why his clothes and other surrounding
evidence were burned. They want to know why Pat,s brother, an
Army Ranger in close proximity to the incident, was lied to immediately
about how Pat fell. They want to know why Pat was given the Silver
Star posthumously, which is supposed to be a medal earned for
active combat. They want to know why someone concocted the story
repeated by endless eulogizers at Pat,s nationally televised
funeral about Pat charging up a hill, and falling in a brutal
firefight vs. "Taliban guerrillas. They want to know why
the truth was withheld from them at their son,s burial even though
the completed preliminary investigation had already found that
his death had been caused by "an act of gross negligence.
The Tillmans want to know why they weren,t told of an early investigator,s
report that stated the actions of Tillman,s unit were "characterized
by secrecy, mishandling of evidence, and delays in reporting
crucial facts about what had happened.
The Inspector General's review
was launched because the Tillmans, by all accounts a private
family, chose to reveal an image of their son very at odds with
the GI Joe image concocted inside the Pentagon. The Pat Tillman
his parents unveiled felt the war in Iraq was "f"ing
illegal and counted among his favorite authors anti-imperialist
critic Noam Chomsky. He even had a meeting set up with Mr. Chomsky
that he was never able to make. This is the same Pat Tillman
who turned down the NFL,s millions to join the Army Rangers and
"kick ass in Afghanistan. Clearly he was in the process
of questioning this. Clearly he was coming to the conclusions
that most of the United States - along with the majority of
soldiers, not to mention the majority of Iraqis that in the
Middle East, the US is not on a project of liberation but occupation.
The Tillmans are justifiably
skeptical that the probe will reveal anything new. As Patrick
Sr. said, "I think it's another step. But if you send investigators
to reinvestigate an investigation that was falsified in the first
place, what do you think you're going to get?" He,s right,
of course, but the fact that the US Army is launching this criminal
probe only demonstrates how effective the Tillmans have been
in challenging the Pentagon, while being armed with nothing but
their outrage. As Col. Joseph Curtin, an Army spokesman at the
Pentagon said, "We want to do the right thing for the family.
We owe it to the family. We owe them the truth." It,s an
amazing admission. With over 2,300 US troops and tens of thousands
of Iraqis killed for a Presidential administration,s ambitions
and lies, now one family is at last owed "the truth. It,s
a start, I suppose.
CounterPunch
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