Tillman’s Brother Blasts Military’s ‘Intentional Falsehoods’
WASHINGTON –Pat Tillman’s brother accused the military Tuesday of “intentional falsehoods” and “deliberate and careful misrepresentations” in portraying the football star’s death in Afghanistan as the result of heroic engagement with the enemy instead of friendly fire.” We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public,” Kevin Tillman told a House Government Reform and Oversight Committee hearing. “Pat’s death was clearly the result of fratricide,” he said.
“Revealing that Pat’s death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster in a month of political disasters … so the truth needed to be suppressed,” said Tillman, who was in a convoy behind his brother when the incident happened three years ago but didn’t see it.
The committee’s chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., accused the government of inventing “sensational details and stories” about Pat Tillman’s death and the 2003 rescue of Jessica Lynch, perhaps the most famous victims of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
Lynch, then an Army private, was badly injured when her convoy was ambushed in Iraq. She was subsequently rescued by American troops from an Iraqi hospital but the tale of her ambush was changed into a story of heroism on her part.
Still hampered by her injuries, Lynch walked slowly to the witness table and took a seat alongside Tillman’s family members.
“The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideals of heroes and they don’t need to be told elaborate tales,” Lynch said.
Kevin Tillman said his family has sought for years to get at the truth about Pat Tillman’s death, and have now concluded that they were “being actively thwarted by powers that are more interested in protecting a narrative than getting at the truth and seeing justice is served.”
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., questioned how high up the chain of command the information about Tillman’s friendly fire death went, and whether anyone in the White House knew before Tillman’s family.
Pat Tillman’s mother, Mary Tillman, said she believed former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must have known. “The fact that he would have died by friendly fire and no one told Rumsfeld is ludicrous,” she said.
Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004, after his Army Ranger comrades were ambushed in eastern Afghanistan. Rangers in a convoy trailing Tillman’s group had just emerged from a canyon where they had been fired upon. They saw Tillman and mistakenly fired on him.
Though dozens of soldiers knew quickly that Tillman had been killed by his fellow troops, the Army said initially that he was killed by enemy gunfire when he led his team to help another group of ambushed soldiers. It was five weeks before his family was told the truth, a delay the Army has blamed on procedural mistakes.
Pat Tillman’s mother, Mary Tillman, told the committee family members were “absolutely appalled” upon realizing the extent to which they were misled.
Last month the military concluded in a pair of reports that nine high-ranking Army officers, including four generals, made critical errors in reporting Tillman’s death but that there was no criminal wrongdoing in his shooting.
Tillman’s death received worldwide attention because he had walked away from a huge contract with the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the Army after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Mary Tillman said she found it “horrific” that investigators found no violations of rules of engagement.
Waxman contended that the federal government invented “sensational details and stories” about the Tillman’s death and Lynch’s rescue.
“The government violated its most basic responsibility,” said Waxman.
Lawmakers also planned to press the Pentagon with questions still hovering over Tillman’s shooting, including whether a Predator drone was flying overhead when Tillman was killed and whether it videotaped the incident. The military says no such videotape exists.
Associated Press writer Scott Lindlaw contributed to this report from San Francisco.
© 2007 The Associated Press.
I so admire Kevin Tillman and Jessica Lynch for going before Congress and telling it like it is: the government LIED. It wasn’t mistakes, faulty intelligence, the fog of war or any of the other euphemisms they’ve been cramming down our throats. They’ve been LYING to us for years now and it has to stop. May these courageous young people serve as examples to the rest of the country, particularly the media and our “leaders” in the government.
Pat Tillman was obviously blinded by patriotism when he enlisted. There are a number of articles out describing how completely disillusioned he was with the war of terror at the time of his death, that he was speaking openly about the travesty of the carnage being inflicted by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was almost certainly purposely murdered. That’s what such extensive coverup was necessary.
The American people need to wake up and realize that our government will do anything to push an agenda that is favorable to their needs. They needed a hero and here was a man who turned down millions to fight for his country. WOW! What more could they ask. Talk about a poster boy for the Army! They certainly didn’t need anything that would take away from the image that ran on TV every night for weeks. So rather than telling the truth, they lied, just as they lied about Jessica Lynch. The Army and the news media tried to make her a real live Rambo. Then she was “rescued” after the Iraqui doctors tried to turn her over to the Army. A rescue staged and filmed like a recruitment ad. Folks, the Army will
lie to you and me. And if you believe anything the folks in Washington tell you then you must have just fallen off a turnip truck.
Pat Tillman’s parents’ grief after the death of their son in Iraq was compounded by military’s cover-up of the cause of his death: friendly fire.
In a March 21, ‘06 NY Times article, Tillman’s mother asked a disturbing question. “This is how they treat a family of a high-profile individual,” she said. “How are they treating others?”
The case of Pfc. LaVena Johnson of St. Louis, Missouri is one answer to Mary Tillman. When 19 year old Johnson was killed in Iraq in July 2005 the army told her family that she died of self-inflicted wounds, but evidence indicates that Johnson was sexually assaulted, beaten and murdered. So far her family’s pleas to reopen her case have been ignored by the Army.
I urge Common Dreams readersto join hundreds of others across the country who are petitioning the Senate Armed Forces Committee to investigate Johnson’s death. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/pfc_lavena_johnson/
Anne Trudeau
Portland Oregon
The most important thing that the DON’T teach in schools…..
NEVER BELIEVE YOUR OWN COUNTRY’S PROPOGANDA!!
Ask the surviving members of the Hitler Youth how well that worked out for them. Or for that matter anybody who fought in Vietnam.
The Pat Tillman story and the Jessica Lynch story had about as much substance as the John McCaine takes a walk in Baghdad story. Your government faked this war from the beginning to prop up the oil industry and the falling dollar.
Google: “new pearl harbor” for more insights.
Steve: “many americans” should start to understand that the military forces of the empire are NOT the jedi knights. The storm troopers serve the empire.
It is an unpleasant truth, but it is really time to realize that the great enthusiam that the US people put into their military is NOT a sound base for a real democracy. The task of your troops is NOT to bring democracy to other nations … it is to protect the interests of the empire they are serving. Of course, these are not bad people; but they are not serving your “democracy” … but the powers behind your empire.
You will not change the face of your nation until more people are willing to accept this fact … and do something about it.
hint: many people in other countries do understand for quite a while. time to catch up!
So Jessica Lynch was not the heroic Rambo that Pentagon propaganda made her out to be. In her testimony before congress beside Kevin Tillman, however, she stood as a hero of a different sort: one with the integrity to speak the truth, even in the face of her own self-interest.
It says a lot about the mentality of Cheney’s War Department that they simply assumed that Lynch would play along with the role they handed her. Everyone wants to be a hero, don’t they?
When lies and deception are integral to one’s way of life, it’s hard to imagine that others might be different. They gave Jessica a handy rationale to keep quiet and play along: “it’s for the good of your fellow soldiers.” The sheep.., er, citizens, need tales of heroism to inspire them and keep them with the program.
It’s clear that Lynch worried about that. Whatever one thinks about the war and how we were led into it, there’s no question that most of our fighting men and women sincerely believed in what they were doing. The authority structure she had been trained to obey were telling Pfc Lynch that the fiction surrounding her capture and “rescue” was for the good of the country.
She didn’t fall for it. She declined to play at being something she wasn’t, apparently feeling that the simply heroism of soldiers doing their jobs ought to be enough for the country. If I were Keith Olberman, I would nominate her for today’s “best person in the world”.
GOVERNMENT IS ONLY AS HONEST AS ITS MONEY …
How is it the US government can afford a trillion dollar war?
I sincerely believe that the majority of this nation’s fighting force of sons, daughters, mommies, granpas, and grandmas sincerely believe that what they are killing and dying for is right. I also sincerely believe that the Bush-Cheney regime have been sincerely lying to the American people from the get-go. The only question is; when will our sincerely gutless senators and representatives cut of the funds from our sincerly criminal leaders. If the mindless criminals (Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rove, Wolfowitz, et. al.) would like to sincerely “save the world for democracy” let them personally get in a plane and lead the charge into Teheran. I would even allow then full body armor built of the most sincerely best materials. This way, they could sincerely show us just how brave, heroic, and sincrely honorable they are. Go team go……sincerely
I know of one Viet Nam vet who worries that one of his “brothers” was given the same orders he was given as a member of a Special[Black] Ops unit. Without questioning his superiors, he was ordered to “terminate the enemy” which happened to be officers in the ARVN, as well as one American officer. If his superiors knew of Pat’s intentions to resign and speak out against an Illegal War, it is hard to believe we have some soldiers who will carry out orders without questioning. But then again, as Rummy said, “you get the army you get!”
It is a shame Mrs. Tillman did not teach her children critical thinking when they were growing up, because if she had she probably wouldn’t have lost a son to corporate profits.
Right wingers tend to only become intelligent, or human, after it hits them directly. Their inability to see the world beyond their own personal needs is what makes them seem so different from liberals.
For Nancy & the Reaganites, Ron had to lose the couple of marbles he had in order for them to see the value of stem cell research
The Brady’s had to have Jim take a bullet to the brain before it dawned on them that common sense gun control was not a violation of the 2nd amendment
For the Tillman’s they had to sacrifice one of their children before they woke up to the reality that conservatives are hate mongering filth who are more than willing to murder millions, including conservative voters children, to maximize corporate profits
If only all of the conservatives could suffer horrible personal losses we might finally become a nation of compassion and integrity that actually lives up to all of the rah-rah-America that flows from the tongues of the bible thumping, flag and gun waving, freedom hating, blind conservatives.
Why is this Tillman and Lynch story coming up now? Did the media suppress this information for so long or did the victims and family just come out with it? It’s kind of like the time of Vietnam; once more and more people oppossed the war, then more high profile people changed their positions on the war.
Its coming up now because the Democrats are in the driving seat..
I’ve followed the Jessica narrative since day one. The involvement of Iraq1 doctors which saved her life continues to be obscured, down played, ignored or intentional misrepresented especially by the writer who penned her story, trying to spice it up with a suggestive possible rape scenario.
‘Saving Private Lynch story ‘flawed’ Thursday May 15 2000 some excerpts
“But her story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived”
“Iraqi doctors in Nasiriya say they provided the best treatment they could for the soldier in the midst of war. She was assigned the only specialist bed in the hospital and one of only two nurses on the floor.
“I examined her, I saw she had a broken arm, a broken thigh and a dislocated ankle,” said Dr Harith a-Houssona, who looked after her. Harith had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance.
But as the ambulance, with Private Lynch inside, approached a checkpoint American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/3028585.stm
Dana, I doubt that Tillman was murdered, but he certainly would have been a embarrisment had he lived and met with N.C.
‘The Meeting That Never Was: Pat Tillman and Noam Chomsky’ http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1007-22.htm Chomsky