Pat Tillman’s mother: ‘This was a public deception.’
By on May 5th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Pat Tillman’s mother: ‘This was a public deception.’
Last night on CBS’s 60 Minutes, host Katie Couric reported on the ongoing Pentagon deception surrounding the death of former Army Ranger Pat Tillman. “The point that everyone seems to miss,” said Pat’s mother Mary Tillman, is that “this isn’t about us. It’s about what they’ve done to the public. This was a public deception.” Watch it:
Some of his fellow Rangers said that before he died, Pat Tillman expressed his fear that if something happened to him, his death would be exploited by the military and used as propaganda. “He would be just insanely upset,” a fellow soldier said. “He’d probably laugh and say this is just criminal. Those would probably be his exact words. This is criminal.” Watch the full video here.
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"This is criminal."
That's what some of us have been saying all along.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:04 amNot to be overly picky, but grammar alert at "surrounding the dead...".
That noted, how in the howitzer hell is Executive privilege folded into this cover up???
May 5th, 2008 at 10:16 amLa, la, la, another day in Bush world, actions of the President and pentagon are seen as "criminal", nothing new here.
If our constitutional tree should be felled in the forest by a criminal regime of White House ax men, but no one in Congress or the Corporate Media wants to hear it fall, then are any high crimes and misdemeanors ever committed?
I guess it's also just another day in Pelosi-Land, just look the other way, ignore the wire-tapping, torture, Constitutional abuses, refusal to honor a subpoena, ignore the electrocutions and rapes committed by Halliburton, just ignore it all.
One Sad Patriot!
May 5th, 2008 at 10:22 amRUCerious Says:
That noted, how in the howitzer hell is Executive privilege folded into this cover up???
"Executive privilege" is GOP-speak for "divine right of kings."
May 5th, 2008 at 10:24 am4,071 of our own that we know of have died for the bush war..
May 5th, 2008 at 10:26 am1 Million or more Iraq men, women and children have died for the bush war.
What will it take.?
How many is enough to satisfy the war lust of the polatician's and profateer's?
Isn't every soul lost a Pat Tillman for some one, for all of us.?
Who's child, husband or wife will be the last to die for this madness and evil.?
Blessings are not enough, there can be no healing and Peace untill first there is justice to those that caused this genocide...
To borrow from our witch, Blessings upon Mary Tillman. It is almost shocking to see somebody speaking the truth on the TV.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:39 amOf course it is criminal and that fact alone makes it all the more horrendous that W and his Unity Executive have not been held to account for even one of the criminal acts committed in the name of US, the American people. We should all be ashamed that this charade has been allowed to continue.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:44 amRUCerious,
That point should be screamed in the face of the public. Why is Bush covering up Tillman's murder? Executive Privilege my ass, what is the Chimperor hiding?
3 shots to the head in a tight pattern? Tell me how that happens unless it's a 3 shot burst from close range. Burn his uniform, and his belongings? Silence his fellow soldiers who were there?
I disdain conspiracy theories, but this needs to be investigated, but the Petulant President won't allow it. Why?
May 5th, 2008 at 10:44 amTime for Malkin, Rush, Billo, The Weekly Standard, and others to mount a smear campaign.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:45 amToday, the Good Morning America show broadcast an interview by Robin Roberts with President Bush showing the Lincoln Memorial in the background. Bush comments, "All men are created equal". Well, we need some legal and moral parsing of those words as exemplified by the Pat Tillman death. Whose wars are we fighting? Should not our wars affect all Americans? Should we be able to buy our defenders of democracy? Should, supposedly, more pay and educational opportunity suffice to relieve the richer from duty? Should we be able to shrug and say "they signed up" and simply let the statistics have no reflection on the republic form of government that engendered them?
May 5th, 2008 at 10:49 amMay 5th, 2008 at 10:53 am
In this case, the crime was committed after the death of Tillman.
At least the crime that needs to be covered up by the executive privilege claim.
Facts surrounding Tilman's death were deliberately changed or omitted in order to portray a make-believe story.
Bush's refusal to release this information protects the people who were responsible for pushing this propaganda to the public, not the soldiers who fired at Tillman that day.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:55 am3 shots clustered in the forehead means someone took aim and fired a short three round burst, DELIBERATELY, at an intended target. If this was accidental, there would not be 3 precise shots in the same area. And even if he was hit three times accidentally, the chances of hitting him in the forehead are...yeah.
And then there's THIS little gem:
From Wiki(emphasis mine):
On July 26, 2007, AP received official documents stating that the investigating doctors performing the autopsy suspected that Tillman was deliberately murdered.[14] 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 (10 m) or so away.
10 yards! That's 30ft away. Close enough that no friendly soldier could have POSSIBLY mistaken PT for an enemy.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:59 amThere is no conspiracy here. If you're asking "What is Bush covering up..." then you're missing the point
It is about Executive privilege. Evil Lord Cheney wants to make the President a monarch, period. This has nothing to do with Tillman. Cheney would force a Supreme Court decision to compel the White House to disclose what brand of paper clips the White House uses. Cheney is about getting rid of "We the People..."
May 5th, 2008 at 11:17 amPat Tillman was totally against the Iraq invasion. He knew that his stance on this was dangerous as a military person.
I see at least 3 lies here...
-3 rounds in the head; someone was up close & personal, shooting
-The Pentagon lied to the family immediately
-the Bush machine knowingly covered up the truth to all of us
All 3 lies are worthy of jail & treason.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:24 amScrewBush Says:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If our constitutional tree should be felled in the forest by a criminal regime of White House ax men, but no one in Congress or the Corporate Media wants to hear it fall, then are any high crimes and misdemeanors ever committed?
May 5th, 2008 at 10:22 am
YES
Congressmen have a 2-year shelf life ; Senators a 6 year.
The Corporate MSM rises and falls with the Nielsen ratings book and advertiser $'s.
The US Constitution stands for infinity.............
May 5th, 2008 at 11:25 amThe main problem is our inbred notion that 'America' is incapable of heinously calculated deception and murder with malice aforethought. From Clinton's "how dare you" to a 9-11 truther to Bill Maher, and all the other "authorities" who ridicule the idea that 'America' could purposely torture, could purposely murder, could purposely lie straight from the very Oval office.
Of course, despite the revelations that My Lai was under orders, Vietnam attacks were fabricated to gull the US public into backing an illegal war, that the Federal Government experimented on Blacks by infecting them with syphilis & lying to them until 1972. That bush's EPA had a program called "CHEERS" that, sponsored in part by the US chemical industry, sought to experiment and endanger low-income children. That Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, ad nauseum, lied to 'America' and invoked insane torture policies which they denied, the deluded still claim that somehow, we're reaally 'the good guys.'
"But America is really a moral, christian nation, right?"
No. Any nation that practices the absolute equivalent of Nazi experiments on its civilians, with full executive knowledge, whose policies promote torture, whose policies deny fair trial under any circumstances, and who employ "secret laws" to arrest and convict in a hastily assembled kangaroo court, that nation is not moral. Not christian. Not just.
Only the veneer of propaganda, looped on the teevee to reinforce the notion of our collective cultural self-delusion keeps the administration from being taken down in a deluge of angry fists, torches and frankenstein rakes.
Amid the gloss, convenience and kitsch of walmart and ipods, we simply cannot believe or grasp that we're fostering the new Anschluss.
'God damn america,' indeed.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:37 am‘God damn america,’ indeed. You are so wrong in your choice of denunciation. Look at the natural and man made tragedies that have ravages the world, from wars eternal to the tsunami, poverty, and endless trails of pain throughout the world. Is your conclusion ‘God damn God', or whatever power there may be? Specific Americans have been accountable for the disasters you enumerate above. They are accountable as individuals and collectively.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:49 amAnd to top off this disgraceful coverup, I seem to recall hearing a soundbite from some right wing nutjob, a woman, maybe a politician, saying that his death shouldn't be mourned because he was an atheist and therefore would not go to heaven. I'm sure someone can find that quote somewhere.
I just can't for the life of me understand how any of these neo-con, republican, right wingers have any credibility left at all. you would think that the American public would have soundly repudiated them long ago. I guess that just speaks for how far the average American's thought process has fallen.
Oh, by the way, have you heard about the Brangelina and Swayze pics?
May 5th, 2008 at 11:57 am18. gus smith Says:..Look at the natural and man made tragedies that have ravages the world, from wars eternal to the tsunami, poverty, and endless trails of pain throughout the world. Is your conclusion ‘God damn God’
You erroneously roll man-made and natural disasters into the same sentence. Natural disasters are just that, natural. Shaking your fist because it rains on your picnic day is pointless. You have no power over that. (Neither does your sky ghost.)
However...
America lies. America, my America has beaten innocent people to death under the auspices of 'national security.' My America has imprisoned innocent people, blocked investigations into 9-11, blocked investigations into the incompetence of Katrina, experimented on people.
My America has murdered 1 MILLION+ people for a flat-out LIE.
My America has dumped Habeas Corpus.
My America has strip-searched 10-year-old girls and dumped wheel-chair-bound citizens to the floor. My America allows people to die for the sin of being poor. My America dumps sick people on the sidewalk in hospital gowns.
My America is a waning place of injustice via cash-justice with such skewed priorities that people are still stupid enough to spout My American government's propaganda that we'd all be wearing burquas if it weren't for the worst US president in history enacting the worst US foreign policy in US history.
If this country's behavior doesn't nominate it for God-damnability, what the hell is left for it to do that you would find sufficiently offensive enough?
May 5th, 2008 at 12:09 pmSo many outrages, so little time. Even though the MSM is one small step away from pure yellow journalism to titillate the masses, it seems that the cover-up of Tillman's death would have the sex appeal to pique the interest of the sheeple.
Forget the 28%ers, those freaks have been lobotomized, but where is the outrage from the majority?
These Bush Bastards should be tried and when found guilty, punished for their crimes against our country.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:16 pm18. gus smith Says: Specific Americans have been accountable for the disasters you enumerate above. They are accountable as individuals and collectively.
Check your history, gus. For example, My Lai was termed an error, mistake in interpretation of orders, etc. In reality, the orders were from the top and quite clear: anyone in the enemy-held territory, whether civilian or even children, was considered hostile and a target. (This from just released files over the incident.
'Specific Americans' were help to account, but not the ones who were responsible. I'll wager you think Abu Ghraib was just some "bad apples" like Graner and justice has been served, right?
May 5th, 2008 at 12:16 pm#20.....BRAVO..A well written post..Thank you...Blessings
May 5th, 2008 at 12:19 pmBut hanshiro, I just don't understand your arguments to allow the denunciation ‘God damn america'. Is God not omnipotent, in control of man and nature? That is my childish view of 'god' and therefore I am a weak believer. No matter the political spin and who wins the blame game, individuals are responsible. 'They' are not me or my country.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:28 pm24.gus smith Says: Is God not omnipotent, in control of man and nature?
Not in my opinion; no one knows. No one. To point out that America's documented actions, plans, niggling, mean, tin-god delusional schemes make them worthy of damnation already allows the denunciation. Is worthy of the denunciation.
24.gus smith Says: No matter the political spin and who wins the blame game, individuals are responsible. ‘They’ are not me or my country.
However, my taxes are used to subsidize those insane policies. I am branded and documented an 'american' and have to endure the stigma of belonging to a nation that has gone off the deep end, tortures, murders; much as honest Germans had to suffer the stigma, the stain of Nazi insanity. It is outrageous.
Were there actually a God, bush would be in Abu Ghraib, stripped of any means to extricate himself.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:43 pmGus Smith: try this on for size:
Missing in all the discussions regarding God and the recent slate of catastrophic climactic events (tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.) is the simple fact that God has nothing to do with them.
I mean, really - why would The Creator, the all knowing, omniscient and omnipotent intelligence that is responsible for the universe and everything within, from the most minute subatomic particle, to the intricacies of the human brain, be concerned with the trials and tribulations of the human race, which occupies the bottom rung of intelligent existence?
It is a testament of humanity's arrogance and false sense of importance to think that such an incredible being would be so integral in the day to day lives and events that effect us all here on this earth... one planet in billions upon billions in the universe that no doubt harbor life forms more developed than us.
We, as a collective human race, must finally understand that it is WE that control our destiny. Not God, or Allah, or Jehovah, or Buddha, or Shiva, or any other figure that religions have created. The Creator is a being that does not fit into any category, he can't be defined; his actions and motives can and will never be known.
The Creator has enabled us via thought and intelligence to create our own destiny, to be proper stewards of the planet, to strive to be the best we can be, so our souls can make the next step in the hierarchy of intelligent life after we leave our mortal bodies here on earth.
We as humans make the bed we have to sleep in, and ultimately are responsible for any and all events that affect us and our planet.
By blindly accepting as fate the events (good and bad) that affect our lives, we are in essence relinquishing the ability to transform our reality; to institute the changes necessary to rectify wrongs, and take pre-emptive actions to ensure the perpetuation of our race.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:43 pmKatie did her best to support the White House and Pentagon in the interview but Mrs. Tillman had the facts to prove her point. Look Americans could care less about our soldiers dying. We pay a contractor KBR who uses cheap material and now we see how soldiers electrocuted while taking a shower. Not one American sees a problem with continue the KBR contracts. Many companies have moved off shore so they don't have to pay US taxes. Our soldiers are dying everyday and now the Pentagon wants to send the troops on 7,8,9 tours to Iraq's Civil War, or until the soldier dies or kills himself. Most Americans turn their head or support the White House policy just don't open the draft. Not one American would go to Iraq or Afghanistan if the draft were open. This occupation would come to a quick end if that draft were open to all Americans, it's no problem letting the current soldiers die to protect the US oil interest.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:46 pm26.citizen_pain Says: We, as a collective human race, must finally understand that it is WE that control our destiny. Not God, or Allah, or Jehovah, or Buddha, or Shiva, or any other figure that religions have created.
Except, of course, those who have touched by his noodly appendage....
May 5th, 2008 at 12:56 pmI didn't see the whole interview.
Did Couric mention that Tillman turns out to have been shot through the head three times, at close range, with an M-16?
Did she mention that the Army medical examiner who examined Tillman's corpse recommended a homicide investigation?
Did she mention that 6 Army investigations produced a cover-up, including one by an officer who claimed that Tillman's family was unable to cope with their son's death because they were atheists? Did she mention that Tilman's religious views were a source of friction with others in his unit?
Did she mention that Tillman's diary was either burned on-site along with his body armor, or is being concealed elsewhere?
Did she mention that the physical and other evidence contradicts the "eye-witness accounts" quoted exhaustively in the WaPo (which cites Tilman being shot from 1/2 mile away) indicating this testimony was faked?
Did she mention that there is virtual certainty taht the Bush admin knew that Tilman's death was a fratricide, before the big National Cathedral televised send off?
The closer one gets to the Tilman story, the uglier it gets.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:45 pmThank you Hanshiro # 20.
I feel the same way.
Now, want to tell me when the revolution starts?
May 5th, 2008 at 1:48 pmHellooo, Oliver Stone, somebody, how about making this a movie so that generations of kids who want to serve their country can see how their government will treat them.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:56 pmIt sounds as if the Army is still new at this "strategic communication" business so they keep getting caught in clumsy lies. They'd be much better off if they'd had Karl Rove working for them -- but then, of course, Bush would be even farther up the crick than he is now.
May 5th, 2008 at 3:06 pmThis is old news, that is to say, no news. Yes, it is tragic that Mr. Tillman died, and just as tragic that the military lied to his mother about the circumstances of his death. But this interview serves no purpose other than to sensationalize a stale, dated story.
May 5th, 2008 at 3:21 pmWhat's the shelf life of a story about the use of Executive Privilege to derail an investigation into a hero's possible murder?
Bored are you longdon? Or are you like the rest of the neocons, betting that the new droppings will cover up the old shit?
May 5th, 2008 at 4:26 pm