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Time for President Bush to Come Clean on NFL star Pat Tillman's death in Afghanistan

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Hoodude

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Jul 30, 2007, 3:54:17 PM7/30/07
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Time for President to Come Clean on Tillman

Posted July 28, 2007 | 11:09 AM (EST)
Jon Soltz - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-soltz
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-soltz/time-for-president-to-com_b_58212.html

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 that
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.

--

Vance Packard saw it coming.

Topic Cop

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Jun 5, 2023, 11:54:42 PM6/5/23
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radioacti...@gmail.com

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Jun 6, 2023, 7:06:01 AM6/6/23
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This recording artist is one I've never heard before, and she's talented, Topic Cop. But I couldn't discern pretty much ANY of her lyrics; not a critique, mind you, as her only responsibility is to record a compelling performance, while discerning artfully-unintelligible lyrics is the responsibility of US, the listening public. But still, other than the track's title, I had ZERO idea she was singing about the late football Cardinal! Are her lyrics online?

Now, I'm a serious football Cardinals fan--or at least WAS, and won't be again until they dump that ball-hogging hot-dog quarterback they've been saddled with of late--yet I never thought the Pat Tillman story--as self-sacrificial, heroic and tragic as it is--was a bigger deal once it came out that he was a victim of friendly fire.

SURE that's incredibly unfortunate, and it should NEVER have been covered up. But friendly-fire is ALSO to be a GIVEN; all kinds of unlucky folk die that way in wars, or as unwitting bystanders, or from malfunctions in weaponry, etc. All of which is why we all avoid war zones as best as we can. And in the post-draft era, Tillman could have lived the good, wealthy athletic life, and yet post-9/11, was anxious to insert himself into a war zone.

Bad for the Arizona Cardinals but good for the USA, and mortally unfortunate for Tillman himself.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida

Raul TW

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Jun 6, 2023, 3:32:53 PM6/6/23
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On Monday, July 30, 2007 at 12:54:17 PM UTC-7, Hoodude wrote:
> Time for President to Come Clean on Tillman

Good luck with that. Dubya did not attend a single funeral of the thousands of soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Steve in NC

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Jun 7, 2023, 2:47:11 PM6/7/23
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> In that sense, this president, everyday, firms up his legacy as the
> worst Commander-in-Chief this nation has ever seen.

The only way that claim can be made is if you don't count Joe Biden, since he's still in office.
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