Rumsfeld, Neocons laugh off death of Pat Tillman

M.J. Rosenberg points out the right-wing Neocon attitude towards the death of Pat Tillman:

I always thought that, for all their loathsomeness, the right cares about our men and women in uniform. Yes, I know that they are all too willing to sacrifice them on the battlefield. But that is war and these people believe that all wars are worth dying in.

But now I see that they even have utter contempt for the individual soldier who dies on a foreign battlefield. Donald Rumsfeld and his GOP allies chuckled their way through yesterday's hearing on the death (friendly fire, murder, whatever) of the most famous soldier serving in the 9/11 wars, Pat Tillman. This is the same soldier whose death they used to drum up support for the war, who they made a poster boy for it.

But then he was killed (somehow) and it came out that he opposed the Iraq war, was not a Christian, and, worst of all, came from a family of troublemakers who demanded to know what happened to their boy.

And now Pat Tillman is, in the words of an army chaplain, "worm dirt." And his death, which may have been a murder, is one big joke to these guys. Rumsfeld, leaving the Committee room, dodged Tillman's family, not offering a word of sympathy. They have none. Read the rightwing blogs on the Tillman case. The once fair-haired boy is now a joke, his death just one of those things, his family a bunch of liberals who should shut just shut the f--- up.

Even the Republican criminals currently in charge of this country don't have to also be loathsome gutter-slime, but Rumsfeld and crew work at it.

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See also:

• Evidence suggests Pat Tillman was murdered
  July 26, 2007
  
• What is the Bush Admin hiding in the Pat Tillman case?
  July 15, 2007

What is the Bush Admin hiding in the Pat Tillman case?

The basic story of Pat Tillman is clear, and since he was a professional football player who dropped his football career to join the Army along with his brother after 9/11, he got a lot of press.

After completing Ranger indoctrination Tillman was sent with the second battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment in Fort Lewis, Washington into Iraq in the initial invasion, then sent from Iraq to Afghanistan where he was killed on April 22, 2004 while on patrol. The initial report from the Army Special forces Command said that he was killed by enemy fire in an exchange of fire with the enemy resulting from an ambush. Gen. John Abizaid, the Commander of the troops in Iraq and Iran at that time, awarded Tillman the Silver Star, a Purple Heart and a posthumous promotion from specialist to corporal based on a detailed account of the heroic story of his actions - in a battle that never took place and which was known by the Army Commanders to have not taken place.

The Army Commanders immediately knew that Tillman's death was actually a friendly fire incident. So they put his unit under a communications blackout to prevent any communications with reporters and burned Tillman's body armor and uniform. The initial investigation conducted by Army captain Richard Scott concluded that Tillman's death was the result of a lack of discipline that should have brought serious punishment. The investigations by higher ranking officers that have since followed have reached much less harsh conclusions, so the individuals who actually killed Pat Tillman have gotten mild punishment if any at all, and the higher ranking officers have not taken any responsibility for what was a failure of leadership, more clearly in the aftermath of Tillman's death, but from what I have heard, also during the shooting itself.

As a retired Army officer myself, it looks like the living survivors get a lot more mercy than they deserve, the dead remain very dead and so get no mercy at all, and the commanders who failed to properly control the situation or investigate, judge and honestly report the aftermath continue on in their careers with no real accountability. This looks like a prime example of careerism in the military. Pat Tillman, his family, the Army and the American people all deserve much better.

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Mark Kleiman properly points out how the Democrats should be dealing with this. Congressional Hearings to determine exactly what happened and why, both on a road outside of the village of Sperah, Afghanistan and later during the investigations and cover-ups.

EmptyWheel at The Next Hurrah adds her always considerable political wisdom to Mark Kleiman's proposals.