There was just one problem: Tillman wasn't a gung-ho warmonger. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
"A side of Pat Tillman not widely known – a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought, and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books … to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author."
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Mary Tillman has long suggested that her son was deliberately murdered by his fellow soldiers. After initially dismissing her allegations as a case of grief-gone-over-the-edge, I've come to believe that there is something awfully fishy about this whole incident.
After all, why were Army attorneys sending "congratulatory e-mails" to each other for fending off criminal investigators on the case? The general who kept the details of Tillman's death from the Tillman family and the public claimed that he was having a problem with his memory, and that's why he just couldn't recall any important details of how Tillman's death was handled. Doctors who tried to reconcile the forensic evidence with the official account urged that a criminal investigation be pursued, but they were rebuffed. What's really suspicious, however, is that evidence of enemy fire at the scene was singularly lacking: no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any equipment damaged. According to numerous reports, there were no Taliban in the area.
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The backtracking, the misinformation, the deliberate withholding of documents that required a FOIA request in the first place, and now the demotion of a general involved in the "investigation" – all point to a cover-up of massive proportions. Tillman had been keeping a journal since the age of 16, and he took it with him to Afghanistan. Two days after his demise, the journal, along with most of his personal property, mysteriously vanished. Adding another layer of murk, the White House is claiming "executive privilege" in refusing to release documents dealing with Tillman's death. But who is being protected?
First they told us Tillman was killed by hostile fire fighting for Bush's crusade to export "democracy" to Afghanistan. Then they said he was felled by "friendly fire," i.e., by his own troops. These new revelations suggest – although they don't conclusively prove – that this fire may not have been all that friendly.
What I want to know is this: how could someone who was apparently killed from 10 yards away – and was hit by three bullets in very close proximity
on the forehead – be a victim of "friendly fire" from 90 yards away, as claimed?
All of which raises another, increasingly troubling question: Who killed Pat Tillman – and why?
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