July 29, 2007
Pat Tillman was shamelessly used by this administration in order to shore up support for a futile, increasingly unpopular war. When he enlisted, disdaining a multi-million dollar contract with the Cardinals, he was touted by none other than the President and Donald Rumsfeld as a patriot and a model for America’s youth: when he was killed, they said he was felled by “friendly fire”—after initially lying and claiming that he was killed by hostile fire. Now, it’s coming out that he may have been murdered, and not by the Taliban:
“Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman’s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player’s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
“‘The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described,’ a doctor who examined Tillman’s body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.
“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 or so away.”
Who killed Pat Tillman—and why? That’s the title of my latest column for Antiwar.com, and a question that has haunted his family all this time—and is now going to haunt the rest of us. The White House, oddly, is stonewalling a congressional investigation by claiming “executive privilege” concerning documents dealing with the Tillman affair—so what are they hiding?
