Pat Tillman

--King Arthur & the Questioning Beast,
Aubrey Beardsley

Arthur: Merlin, what's the most important quality in a knight?
Merlin: Well, it's courage, it's chivalry,
it's duty to your people, it's.....
Arthur: Stop wandering around! What is it, really?
Merlin: All right, I'll tell you! It's truth!
Every time you tell a lie, you murder some part of the world.
--Excalibur (1981)

I'm sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth
--Just Gimme Some Truth, John Lennon

Tell the truth about what you see and what you do. . .
don't never lie to a Ranger or officer
--Northwest Passage, Kenneth Roberts
________________

There is a photo of Corporal Pat Tillman in the Ranger section at the National Infantry Museum captioned by a patriotic blurb about what a swell fellow Cpl. Tillman was for abandoning a seductive big league ball career and joining the Rangers. But it also tells a lie.

The fact that Tillman was a great American and a fine man and Ranger is an indisputable fact. But the plaque concludes by saying the Cpl. Tillman died as the result of enemy fire, in an ambush. Which is a crock of crap.

The fact of his death in a friendly fire barrage was not mentioned. Ditto that fact that there were no enemy within rifle range. This propaganda is being pushed with my tax dollars, and it is a lie.

Lies are not a part of the Ranger creed and they violate Roger's Rules for Rangers. The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) is a lie, as is the museum's version of Tillman's tragic death. Where does it end?

Is truth no longer a Ranger or an Infantry virtue? Tillman didn't die for our freedom; he died under exceptionally well-targeted friendly fire.

Ranger mourns not only the death of Tillman but the death of truth.

Bringing Pressure to Bear

Won't you ever realize
You've got to hit between the eyes
You're wasting your lead
Aim for the head
--Aim for the Head, Send More Paramedics
________

Veterans' organization VoteVets.org issued the following press release today.

It requests full disclosure of all documents, including communiques between senior administration officials and the Pentagon. In the face of the memory erasure which Mr. Rumsfeld and assorted Generals are suffering in this case, the release of the documents seems imperative in order for a full and accurate accounting of events to transpire.

Mr. Rumsfeld's recent testimonial of non remembrance was particularly offensive, as he was the one who ballyhooed to the nation Pat Tillman's joining the military following 9-11. It is not likely the details of the death of their co-opted cause celebre would have slipped his mind.

________

AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ VETERANS CALL ON NFL,
PLAYERS ASSOCIATION,
TO GET INVOLVED IN TILLMAN PROBE

In letter, veterans say NFL and NFLPA need to call on President to release all documents

NEW YORK - Twenty veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq today wrote to National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFL Players Association head Gene Upshaw, urging them to lend their voices to bi-partisan calls for the President to release all documents related to the death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman. Tillman was a former NFL star with the Arizona Cardinals.

Below is an excerpt of that letter:

"We know that the National Football League is not in the business of partisan politics, nor should it be. However, in this case...the House committee requests were signed by both the Democratic Chairman and Republican Ranking Member, so this is not a partisan witch-hunt, but merely a quest to get to the truth about the death of Pat Tillman," wrote the veterans.

"The league and the Players Association both owe the Tillman family their full support in the family's pursuit of the truth. Mary Tillman, Pat's mother, has been quite vocal about her desire to see all materials released regarding her son's death, and the family has gone as far as expending its own money on private investigations. "

"Earlier in the month, the Associated Press obtained the medical examiner's finding at the time of his death in Afghanistan, that Corporal Tillman's fatal wounds seemed to indicate shots fired from ten yards away, or less. The doctors who examined Corporal Tillman urged a criminal investigation into his death be opened at that time, and were refused. Since that time, the Department of Defense has put forth two explanations for the death of Corporal Tillman. The first, that he was killed by enemy fire, has been disproven. A second, that he was killed by "friendly fire" from a far away convoy, seems to be disproven by the medical examiner's report.

"The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has sent a bi-partisan request for certain communications and documents from the White House regarding the death of Pat Tillman. The President has refused to grant their request, citing executive privilege.

"The administration has shared a number of documents with the committee, but has withheld a number of requested communications under the specious argument that sharing the documents would violate confidentiality among the President and his staff. For instance, the Committee has requested a number of communications between senior administration officials and the Pentagon, which may offer important details into the death of Corporal Tillman, and if there was an attempt to cover them up, by some in the Executive Branch. . ."

by Lisa

No Thinking Aloud

I think I'll let you down
and leave you flat
Because I've told you before, oh,
You can't do that
--You Can't Do that, The Beatles

Ranger spoke yesterday with a native Columbian about Chavez and Venezuela. The man said there was no freedom of speech in Venezuela, ergo, Chavez is a dictator.

This started Ranger thinking: What constitutes freedom, and specifically, freedom of speech? Do we have absolute freedom of speech in America? Justice Holmes decided not in cases of "clear and present danger." Can't yell "fire" in a crowded movie house; can't libel or slander. Otherwise, I believe The Supremes have not yet fully gutted that right for the U.S. citizenry.

And there is freedom of speech among our elected officials, since our leaders are free to lie and bend facts in gravity-defying manners. Slam dunks replace truths. So yes, freedom of speech, if truth is not a requisite. Free, but not necessarily true.

Ret. Army Col. Jack Jacobs in yesterday's New York Times argued against investigations into servicemen's deaths, this new edict following on the heels of the outcry over the suspect killing of Cpl. Pat Tillman ("Generals Don't Need a Watchdog.')

"To conclude that the Army needs to legislate honesty is a knee-jerk response to the stupidity of a very few — a mindless judgment perpetrated by officials who have little idea of military life. That the Army’s uniformed leadership was complicit in creating the new regulation is all the more galling."

Not stupidity, Col. Jacobs, possible criminal collusion in a murder. Different things. The Colonel's exclusionary posture is reminiscent of La Cosa Nostra.

What is galling is the deception we are fed from our trusted leaders. We are the citizens of a great nation, and we are being played for fools or paeans.

Pat Tillman was an avid reader, who kept a small lending library for his unit, and who, according to friends, was a great lover of thought and communication. Our glorious freedoms were one of things which probably motivated his patriotism. He thought he had freedom of speech.

Maybe Cpl. Tillman said the Iraq War was "so f---ing illegal" one too many times.

What then becomes the value of free speech?

Putting the Cart Before the Horse

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning
--Not Waving but Drowning, Stevie Smith

In politics, nothing happens by accident.
If it happens, you can bet it was planned that w
_____________

In another free pass from the press to the administration the New York Times reports, ''Despite multiple investigations and hand-wringing by the Pentagon, the full truth has not emerged about the death of Cpl. Pat Tillman, the football star turned infantryman who was accidentally gunned down by other Americans in Afghanistan ("Corporal Tillman Haunts the Pentagon''.)

There has been no proof that this death was accidental. This is not a foregone conclusion, as there are several ways to interpret the facts. Among these, it could be a deliberate murder (homicide), or it could be accidental (fratricide).

Since the investigations are so flawed and contradictory, there is no way to say this was accidental.

A Ranger rule is ''don't ever lie to another Ranger or an officer.'' After recent congressional testimony, it seems that in this incident that inviolable rule was violated, top down.