Rumsfeld v The Facts: What I Expect To Hear Today During The Tillman Fratricide Hearing

Mr. "Unknown Knowns," himself, is scheduled to star in “The Tillman Fratricide: What the Leadership of the Defense Department Knew” hearing, which will begin at 10 a.m. in Room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building.

Expect to hear the following catch phrases (or variations thereof):

"Mistakes were made"

"No intent to deceive"

"The misperception of deceit"

"Lingering questions have obscured and detracted from Corporal Tillman’s undisputed heroism"

"We have held ourselves accountable."

"We have taken corrective action."

"We have instituted important changes."

"We have made mistakes over and over and over, an incredible number of mistakes, in handling this."

"This was an accident. And as I review all the matters that were considered by the investigations, there was never any effort to mislead or to hide or try to avoid embarrassing information coming public."

"What we have done here is do our best to determine what the truth is and do our best to explain to them and to the country what we have found. I don’t know more that we can do."

And there'll be the scapegoat card...

"Had [Kensinger] done his job, fulfilled his multiple duties as a senior leader in the administrative chain of command, we would not be here today."

"He let his soldiers down."

Hm. Let's review the facts:

* He was shot three times in the forehead at close range with an American M-16.
* This was after he was shot in the chest, legs and hand.
* And this was after he screamed to the “friendlies” that he was Pat Tillman and please stop shooting him.
* But they didn’t; they executed him.
* They were Americans.
* There wasn’t even an “enemy” around; not only was nobody shot by “enemy fire,” no equipment was shot by “enemy fire.”
* “Members of Tillman’s unit burned his body armor and uniform in an apparent attempt to hide the fact that he was killed by friendly fire.”
* Army medical examiners tried to get a criminal investigation opened, but they were shut down.
* The Army brass who conspired to shut down any criminal investigation into the U.S. assassination of Pat Tillman sent “congratulatory e-mails” to each other after shutting down the snoops.
* The Pentagon heavily promoted Tillman’s enlistment and service as both a recruitment tool and a domestic propaganda tool.
* The Pentagon maintained for long after his murder that Tillman died in combat, finally admitting to his family that “friendly fire” killed him — which wasn’t exactly true, either.
* Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, who commanded Tillman’s base in Afghanistan at the time of his assassination, dismissed Tillman’s family’s attempts to find out what happened. Why? Because Pat Tillman was an atheist, like his family, so they were having “a hard time letting it go.”
* In his writings — Tillman wrote constantly in letters and diaries and e-mails — the NFL star who became an Army Ranger after 9/11 had concluded the Afghanistan War was fake and the Iraq War was a criminal setup.
* The Pentagon still has his diary that he kept with him in Afghanistan, where he was killed, and they won’t release it to his family.
* Tillman had even arranged a meeting with anti-war icon Noam Chomsky about how to go public with a veterans-against-the-war movement.
* Such a movement would’ve had an interesting effect on the Iraq Occupation and the then-upcoming 2004 election; Tillman had already been encouraging his fellow soldiers to vote against Bush.
* Just today, Donald Rumsfeld refused to testify on the subject of Tillman’s assassination before Congress on Wednesday. (Note: Rummy will testify, but don't hold your breath waiting for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.)
* White House Counsel Fred Fielding has, of course, already “refused to issue certain documents to the committee because of executive privilege.”
* What is the White House doing with “certain documents” about Pat Tillman’s murder?
* Says Pat Tillman Sr.: “The administration clearly was using this case for its own political reasons. This cover-up started within minutes of Pat’s death, and it started at high levels. This is not something that people in the field do.”

We all know that Rumsfeld plans to tap dance around the death of a true patriot, but if even a single question makes Rumsfeld squirm today, I'll be somewhat satisfied.

The again, I expect no sense of shame whatsoever from BushCo's minions.


Best bar bet in the world: Delilah didn't do it.
Judges 16:19-- And she made him (Samson) sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.