Top General Warned Bush on Tillman Death

Via ThinkProgress:

The AP reports that one day after approving a medal claiming former NFL player Pat Tillman had been cut down by “devastating enemy fire” in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal tried to warn President Bush that the story might not be true.

In a sometimes contentious November interview under oath and via videoconference, Pentagon investigators sharply questioned McChrystal about the conflicting accounts, according to the testimony obtained by the AP under the Freedom of Information Act.

McChrystal acknowledged he had suspected several days prior to approving the Silver Star citation on April 28, 2004, that Tillman may have died by fratricide.

He said that suspicion led him to send a memo to top generals imploring “our nation’s leaders,” specifically “POTUS” — the acronym for the president — to avoid cribbing the “devastating enemy fire” explanation from the award citation for their speeches.

“Why did you recommend the Silver Star one day and then the next day send a secret back-channel message warning the country’s leaders about using information from the Silver Star in public speeches because they might be embarrassed if they do?” an investigator asked McChrystal.

Despite numerous questions, the general never directly explained the discrepancies.

Despite this apparent contradiction, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal was spared punishment in the latest review of Tillman’s shooting.
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Time for Bush to Come Clean on Tillman

Via ThinkProgress:

Our guest blogger is Jon Soltz, chairman of VoteVets.org and veteran of the Iraq war.

The worst way you can further exacerbate the pain survivors of a fallen soldier feel, is to keep them wondering why and how their loved one died. Now past three years since former NFL star Pat Tillman died in Afghanistan, his mother, Mary Tillman, and her family do not have answers.

Unfortunately, documents meant to put the investigation into his death to rest are only bringing up more painful questions, rather than calming them. What’s worse is that the case could start to have serious repercussions with internal confidence in the Armed Forces.

Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that among the files on the case that the news agency obtained were details of Army medical examiners being unable to convince the military to look into whether Tillman was intentionally killed. According to the documents, the wounds they found were inconsistent with the government’s original official story that Tillman was cut down by Afghan fighters and looked more like he was killed by an American M-16 just a mere 10 yards away.

After an investigation, the government changed the story — that Tillman was a victim of friendly fire, an honest mistake, because he was mistaken for the enemy. The recent revelations now cast this conclusion into serious doubt. You don’t mistake someone from 10 yards away. But, was it murder or negligence? Was this a deliberate homicide?

President Bush is not helping at all. With these new details, and his decision to invoke executive privilege in the Tillman investigation, the President is certainly sending the signal that he has something to hide.
It is inevitable, then, that unless the President comes clean, rumors about Tillman’s death will take hold. By stonewalling, there is no way to stop people from wondering, “Was the man the White House used to promote the war ordered to be killed because he was becoming increasingly critical of the war in Iraq?” It was well known that Tillman was critical of the decision to go to war, and had often read and quoted Noam Chomsky. I don’t personally believe such a conspiracy to be the case, but until the President comes clean, rumors like that will continue to grow. Every officer knows that if a soldier in their command is killed they must write the family and tell them the truth, for exactly that reason. Why can’t the man who sent Pat Tillman to war, and used his death for political gain, have the courage to tell a family what happened to their son?

Ultimately, besides causing unfair pain to the Tillman family, the President is perilously close to doing severe damage to the military with his bullheadedness. If America looks at the Tillman case and concludes that the military cannot be trusted to tell the truth and take care of its own, and that the White House is an enabler of that behavior, public confidence in our fine military will wane.

Recruiters rely on the family members like mothers and fathers to allow their 18-year olds to sign up. The longer this festers and the longer questions linger, these families and our young people will lose their will to serve our country. Who gives their child to country who doesn’t honor their sacrifice? We don’t need new hurdles to recruiting like that, at a time when we desperately need to increase the size of our active duty component. Additionally, those already in the military will lose faith that the leadership actually gives a damn about them, as the Tillman case becomes a hot topic in chow halls. Morale and confidence in the institution will crumble.

In the Army, we have a saying: Good units have problems, but great units fix them. In other words, we’re largely judged in the military by how we are able to step up, accept responsibility, and correct problems, because problems that are allowed to fester are unacceptable. Unfortunately, the Tillman case just extends the pattern from this President of being unwilling or unable to step up and fix problems.

In that sense, this President, everyday, firms up his legacy as the worst Commander-in-Chief this nation has ever seen.
–Jon Soltz

White House to Killed Vet’s Family: Not Your Business

Sometimes you, and that means democrats, have to do something just because it’s right.

That means disregarding the perceived political repercussions and disregarding the estimated efficacy.

Has there ever been a president so arrogant, so imperial-minded that he will thumb his nose at the very form of government that he vowed to protect?

The impeachment offenses are many and obvious. Impeach the idiot now, and forget the political consequences. Now is not the time to play politics.

The latest outrage is the refusal to give Congress documents about the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman, (pictured above) about whom it lied and covered up a friendly-fire death to the outrage of Tillman’s family.

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