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Originally Posted by lurkette
All you lefties - is it possible that the military just...made a mistake? No conspiracy, no propaganda, just garden variety SNAFU? Differing reports by witnesses in a tense, complex situation?
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Read this part:
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Immediately, the Army kept the soldiers on the ground quiet and told Tillman's family and the public that he was killed by enemy fire while storming a hill, barking orders to his fellow Rangers.
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A series of military investigations have offered differing accounts of Tillman's death. The most recent report revealed more deeply the confusion and disarray surrounding the mission he was on, and more clearly showed that the family had been kept in the dark about details of his death.
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The latest investigation, written about by The Washington Post earlier this month, showed that soldiers in Afghanistan knew almost immediately that they had killed Tillman by mistake in what they believed was a firefight with enemies on a tight canyon road. The investigation also revealed that soldiers later burned Tillman's uniform and body armor.
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Over the next 10 days, however, top-ranking Army officials -- including the theater commander, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid -- were told of the reports that Tillman had been killed by his own men, the investigation said. But the Army waited until a formal investigation was finished before telling the family -- which was weeks after a nationally televised memorial service that honored Tillman on May 3, 2004.
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I don't think I need to point out more stuff in the article. Does this answer your question?
This has nothing to do with the media, the media is just the medium for the rest of the country. The big issue here is this: The army lied. Period.
The army lied about how Pat Tillman died in combat and the way the army chosed to communiate that to the family was wrong. Every family, regardless of whether it'll be somebody who sent a relative to the war oversea, a firefighter, a police officer, an ordinary citizen, so on so forth, families still deserve to know exactly what happened to them. Even if the people involved with the investigation didn't know what happened, families still want to know what happened, not what might've happened, or not what happened in the interest of outside party, in this case, the third party is the army.
The army lied to that they can project Pat Tillman as a hero, media eats it up and spit it out to the rest of the country and somebody will see the article piece on TV and go "Oh, wow, Pat is sure a hero, I should sign up and do my part for the country" All that bullshit doesn't make it right.
How would you like it if somebody in your family died, say in a fire but it turns out that what actually happened is that some thug picked up your relatives, raped him, murdered him, cut him up in pieces and burn the building down. Which version would you want to know? I would want to know the latter version simply because I want to know how my relative left the world. Did he leave peacefully? I'm happy for that. If he didn't, well, I'm sadden by that. Either way, I still want to know the truth.