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Topic: pat tillman, wtf??!!
| Author | Message |
| Stanley_Milgram | Posted – 7/29/2007 12:45:47 PM | show profile Has anyone read the AP story about former HFL pro Pat Tillman? First he's supposedly killed in action. Then, no, it was friendly fire. Now it turns out that the doctor who examined his body found THREE BULLET HOLES IN HIS FOREHEAD and recommended a criminal investigation. Meanwhile, Tillman's uniform and diary were destroyed and there are emails of Army officers celebrating the thwarting of an investigation. Oh, and Tillman, the poster boy for the Global War of Terra had soured on the war and was planning to meet with Noam Chomsky. Now he won't do that, of course, because he's dead. Looks like the Dixie Chicks got off easy. |
| Stanley_Milgram | Posted – 7/29/2007 12:46:29 PM | show profile that's NFL of course. Not HFL. We regret the error. |
| chucho | Posted – 7/29/2007 5:10:47 PM | show profile I don't he ever "soured". He wanted to take Osama bin Laden out (who besides religious lunatics and primitives doesn't?) and expressed anger at the Iraq divergence. He was very openly against the Iraq diversion and frustrated at the loss of focus on getting the criminal who orchestrated the murder of 3,000 people toppled two skyscrapers. It wouldn't surprise me if he was fragged by some redenck soldiers (hey, they're there -- not all US soldiers are these symbols of honor, pride and loyalty like everyone wants to paint them, wrapping yourself in warrior-love is an old tradition that goes back at least to the Romans), but it's also possible to be shot three times in one area in friendly fire -- these gun are automatics and fire in spurts. Not that I don't think there should be an investigation, but I always find it humorous to root out criminal activity in war scenarios as if they're crimes committed in civil society scenarios. Combat suck and it's a form of mad chaos that's difficult to control. I think the anti-war movement should keep its eyes on the prize (getting the US to disengage in avoidable military interventions) and not go ape shit over the minutia -- Pat Tillman, after all, is just one of many army grunts that have been killed in combat, and that's likely to be the way he would have wanted to be remembered. Yes, investigate, fine. The military seems to be fairly good at being honest in stuff like this. (They were the first to fess up to Abu Ghraib). |
| ManhattanMatt | Posted – 7/29/2007 5:41:30 PM | show profile Chucho ... "The military seems to be fairly good at being honest in stuff like this. (They were the first to fess up to Abu Ghraib)." Only when there's photographic evidence splashed all over the networks. |
| Stanley_Milgram | Posted – 8/1/2007 5:28:15 AM | show profile so, the army says that Tillman's death wasn't a coverup. It was a "perfect storm of mistakes, misjudgments and a failure of leadership." Just like 9/11. I feel so much better. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/ la-na-tillman1aug01,1,6153863.story?coll=la-news-a_section |
| writesonwater | Posted – 8/1/2007 7:00:24 AM | show profile | email poster A perfect storm of mistakes? I don't think so. After he sends up smoke grenades and yells his name, etc., in English, and gets wounded multiple times, he is finally felled by three bullet holes in the forehead that appear to be fired at a distance of 30 feet away? After which, his journal disappears immediately? And his kit is burned, and a story is roughed out and disseminated that he died under enemy fire? All of this coinciding with his disapproval of the Iraq mission and his agreement to work with a writer? This smacks of efforts to silence a powerful critic in deadly and highly illegal ways. |
| Iron Eagle | Posted – 8/1/2007 9:11:42 AM | show profile This is over the top weird. |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 8/1/2007 9:19:17 AM | show profile I wonder if they call destruction of evidence and intimidation of witnesses "mistakes and misjdgements" in law schools and police academies. I thought they called it "obstruction of justice" and a "felony". Pentagon apparently runs on a different system than the rest of us. |
| chucho | Posted – 8/1/2007 12:08:19 PM | show profile ManhattanMatt: If I recall correctly it was a military source that gave Sy Hersch break the story in The New Yorker. The news came out because a soldier reported tje torture crimes to his superiors (and had to be given armed protection because of it). Gen. Taguba behaved honorably and conducted an investigation and presented finding. Most of this happened before any photos appeared in the press. I'm not one of these people that USES the army and soldiers to wrap myself up in patriotism or anything (I'm not patriotic -- to quote Robert Crumb: France is only slightly less evil than the United States, but still). I think there are too many violent rednecks in the US armed forces (they are probably overrepresented int he military, than in the US population as a whole). But you have to be fair and say the military really isn't the problem with US foreign policy. It's these dimwitted, egomaniacle chickenhawk, draft-dodging neo-con Republicans that run the country right now (and the Dems are, like France is to the United States, only slightly less evil than the Republicans). |
| Stanley_Milgram | Posted – 8/2/2007 9:56:42 AM | show profile well, you also have the emails from army officers congratulating each other on staving off the investigation. Makes it kind of a stretch to then say it was all an honest mistake. |
| Stanley_Milgram | Posted – 8/3/2007 8:48:37 AM | show profile For those interested, there's a good breakdown of the Tillman case here: http://nightlight.typepad.com/nightlight/ 2007/08/once-again-the-.html |
| mkelly | Posted – 8/3/2007 9:33:04 AM | show profile Let me just say... WHO CARES ABOUT PAT TILLMAN? You join the Army, you're liable to get killed-- end of story. Whether it's enemy fire or friendly fire, you're liable to get killed. If you're not prepared to accept the consequences of that-- such as imposing anguish on the loved ones you leave behind-- DON'T JOIN THE DAMNED ARMY! Jeez, at the rate we're going, we'll spend more investigating how this guy got killed than we will on hunting Osama. He joined the Army. He went to a war zone. He died. That's sad, but that's what happens in war. If the Tillman family wants to know more, they can pay for it. |
| catlondon | Posted – 8/3/2007 11:38:42 AM | show profile Wow, mkelly, that's harsh. In the first place, people are trying to determine whether or not Pat was deliberately murdered by his comrades-in-arms. There's a big difference between that and friendly fire. And you could use your argument about anything--you get in a car, you get killed in accident, well tough shit because everyone knows that driving is one of the most dangerous things you can do. If you want to figure out whose at fault, your family can pay for it. If you don't want to get killed in a car accident, don't drive. |
| Mag Girl | Posted – 8/3/2007 11:50:48 AM | show profile Agree, catlondon. And it goes beyond that- the whole issue of the military trying to perpetuate the image of this happy place where people become soldiers and die heros while patriotically saving the world and serving their country. Military propaganda is a meaningful subject to me when it's being used/was used to garner and promulgate public support for an unwinnable war. Same reason why the Jessica Lynch story was a big deal. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 8/3/2007 12:29:35 PM | show profile While I appreciate that joining the army is a dangerous thing to do, fratricide is unacceptable and puts the army itself at risk. |
| chucho | Posted – 8/3/2007 1:19:37 PM | show profile Mag I think you should differentiate between the military and the Pentagon. The Jessica Lynch story was cooked up not by grunts and generals but rather by players inside the administration itself. Generals are usually loath to put soldiers into combat situations and if Bush had listened to the military there would have been at least as many troops as were using in Gulf War I (500,000 not Rumsfeld's 120,000). I'm a pragmatic pacifist. In other words I accept the fact that human societies have always had warrior classes and for better or worse they will continue to exist. And I think the US military is one of the most disciplined in the world. (I rarely agree with Thomas Friedman, but he makes a good point when he asks which are you more likely to survive: detention by a US solider or detention by some random dude in a ski mask.) So I do think the problem is who controls the military, and they're the ones that orchestrates Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman myths, which the media was more than happy to indulge and disseminate. I don't think my fellow liberals recognize the "fourth estate" quality of the US military for what it is -- it's a modern convention to have a military that isn't beholden to an individual person but rather the post of the presidency itself. If Barak Obama became president tomorrow there wouldn't be a coup d'etat in America, for example, because the military isn't beholden to Bush, but rather the Office of the Presidency itself. The implications here are that the military can indeed be trusted more than the current office holders. They're the problem, not the military. Nevertheless I agree completely that Pat Tillman was just another grunt. And if he was fragged and the people who did it get away with it, this will be only a very minor injustice compared to the entire unjust ordeal that the conservatives in America pushed our country into. (because we live ina d democratic and fee society where people are free to protest and to make those Ghandi-like personal sacrifices to push for social momentum: Americans have blood on their hands, not just Bush.) |
| Stanley_Milgram | Posted – 8/3/2007 5:15:56 PM | show profile yes, chucho, it all sounds so run of the mill when you use words like "fragging." How about murdered? or what about "assassinated" (isn't that the proper English term when someone intentionally kills a person of note? e.g., "John Lennon was assassinated by Mark David Chapman")? So the guy gives up a multimillion dollar NFL career to go fight for America, instantly becoming a hero and, not incidentally, a P.R. boon to the war effort, and is, you know, murdered/assassinated (or the evidence all points that way, anyway) and rather than the entire chain of command from the field to the Pentagon and White House screaming for the head of whoever would dare murder/assassinate an American hero (making a "lone nut" explanation FAR more plausible), there's wholesale shredding of evidence, shifting statements on what actually happened, some email high-fives about thwarting an investigation, and when asked, nobody seemed to have been informed about anything until after a Freedom of Information Act filing turned up some documents -- so, you know, like Rumsfeld and Bush heard about it when you and I did. And oh yeah, btw, Tillman soured on the war and was looking forward to hitting the road with his new buddy, Noam Chomsky. And I wouldn't be so sure that more is to be gained by focusing on the larger evil -- the war, the lies, bla bla bla (not that I harbor illusions that anything I could possibly do will change the course of what's going on in Washington, Baghdad or anywhere else of import) but to paraphrase Stalin (someone who knew a thing or two about war and dictatorial power): "One man's death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." |
| Stanley_Milgram | Posted – 8/11/2007 8:14:39 AM | show profile the final whitewash Official reprimands issued to three high-ranking Army officers are only mildly critical of their mistakes after the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman and at times praise the officers. Of the seven officers disciplined, the military laid most of the blame on retired Lt. Gen. Philip Kensinger. The Army also said it would not include the reprimands in the officers' military records, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press. http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/10/tillman.friendlyfire.ap/ index.html?eref=rss_topstories |
| Iron Eagle | Posted – 8/11/2007 9:21:33 AM | show profile Why doesn't Media Bistro remove this waco Hondacivic and his faggot remarks. Doesn't that cross the line? |
| Stanley_Milgram | Posted – 8/11/2007 10:39:59 AM | show profile honda, will you please go back to the little sandbox that is the TV News corner? Your comments have nothing to do with this thread. If you really feel the need to bait people with your abusive remarks, start your own thread. That way, I can more easily avoid it. |
| Stanley_Milgram | Posted – 8/11/2007 10:45:32 AM | show profile and please review the terms you agreed before posting on this bbs, in particular, that you won't... (2) transmit via mediabistro bulletin boards any information, data, text, files, links, software, communication or other materials ("Content") that mediabistro considers to be unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, hateful, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable; |
