Rumsfeld denies coverup in Tillman death

Pat Tillman was a great American for the way he lived his life, his family is in pain over his loss, and to a lesser degree we’re all in pain over this, but I don’t think there was a intentional plot afoot to misinform anyone. But you can’t tell Henry “Nostrilitis” Waxman that;

“You’ve all admitted that the system failed. The public should have known, the family should have known earlier, whoever was responsible,” Mr. Waxman said as the hearing ended. “None of you feel you personally were responsible but the system itself didn’t work. ‘The system didn’t work, errors were made’ — that’s too passive. Somebody should be responsible, and we’re trying to figure that out,” Mr. Waxman said.

Why? Why just this case of friendly fire? Does anyone have any idea how many friendly fire deaths there have been since 2001? I don’t – but I know that this isn’t the only one. Yet, it’s the only one Waxman is concerned enough about to have public hearings. And guess what – it’s not the Army’s fault, it’s not DoD’s fault, it’s not even the fault of whoever the young Ranger was that shot him.

It’s the fault of the laws of physics – steel jacketed bullets travelling at 2000 feet per second penetrate skulls – when you put a number of skulls and a large number of steel jacketed bullets in a relatively confined area, the two are bound to meet with predictable results eventually. Especially if the owners of those skulls lead from the front.

Even the Washington Post sees a conspiracy (surprise!), and of course it’s the Bush Administration’s fault;

Tillman was killed just as the U.S. military was becoming increasingly bogged down in Iraq and as horrific allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison were emerging. The Bush administration initially portrayed his death as an act of heroism against the enemy.

Horrific allegations of penis-pointing at Abu-Ghraib inspired by the evil Bush cabal caused a friendly fire accident.

The incident happened at night, and some misoriented soldiers who ended up in the wrong place. I saw it happen with even more devastating results when a platoon of Bradleys got turned around in a night attack on a dug-in Iraqi armor unit – three Bradleys were destroyed by US M1 tanks which inflicted a number of casualties.

I watched an Apache put some Helfire missiles on a friendly Bradley and M113 APC one night – two were killed in that, too. The guncamera video of that incident is here. So I know that friendly fire happens alot – it’s an ugly creature of war, but a fact nonetheless.

Immediate announcements of deaths are usually intentionally wrong, to protect people until the incidents are investigated thoroughly. That’s only fair.

But I guess we can’t expect Waxman and his cronies shucking and jiving for the CSPAN cameras to understand that people in the military have rights, too.

Category: Support the troops, Terror War