Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out

The strange saga of the death of Pat Tillman has taken another turn. Tillman was the NFL player whose enlistment and death were warflogged by the Bush Administration until it turned out that Tillman was killed by friendly fire.

It also turned out that Pat Tillman was no gung-ho pro-Bush wingnut. He may have felt a patriotic duty to go to Afghanistan, where he was killed, but he "regarded the Iraq war as "fucking illegal" and counted Noam Chomsky among his favorite authors".

More on Tillman from The Nation:

The very private Tillmans have revealed a picture of Pat profoundly at odds with the GI Joe image created by Pentagon spinmeisters and their media stenographers. As the Chronicle put it, family and friends are now unveiling "a side of Pat Tillman not widely known--a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books...to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author." Tillman had very unembedded feelings about the Iraq War. His close friend Army Spec. Russell Baer remembered, "I can see it like a movie screen. We were outside of [an Iraqi city] watching as bombs were dropping on the town.... We were talking. And Pat said, 'You know, this war is so f***ing illegal.' And we all said, 'Yeah.' That's who he was. He totally was against Bush." With these revelations, Pat Tillman the PR icon joins WMD and Al Qaeda connections on the heap of lies used to sell the Iraq War.

Now the Tillman family may be finally getting some justice, because the Army has opened a criminal probe into Tillman's death:

Multiple government investigations found that Tillman, 27, was shot to death by fellow U.S. soldiers during a firefight in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. The Army initially told Tillman’s family that he had been killed by enemy fire and portrayed the former Arizona Cardinals player as a war hero.

Col. Joseph Curtin, an Army spokesman, said the Defense Department office of inspector general had reviewed the matter at the Army’s request and concluded that a criminal probe was warranted.

Curtin said the scope of the new investigation by the Army Criminal Investigation Command, had not yet been determined in detail.

Members of the Tillman family were notified on Friday, Curtin said. In the past, Tillman’s father, Patrick Tillman, and other family members have criticized the Army and its investigations.

“We are obligated to answer the family’s questions, as we are with all grieving families,” Curtin said.

Negligent homicide charges possible
A Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the new investigation has not been formally begun, said it would focus on possible charges of negligent homicide.

A report by the Army found that troops with Tillman knew at the time that friendly fire had killed the football star. Officers destroyed critical evidence and concealed the truth from Tillman’s brother, also an Army Ranger, who was nearby, the report found.

More than three weeks after a memorial service in San Jose, Calif., the Army announced on May 29, 2004, that friendly fire rather than an enemy encounter caused Tillman’s death. However, even at the time of the memorial, top Army officials were aware that the investigation showed the death had been caused by an act of “gross negligence,” the report said.

Given Tillman's opposition to the expanding war, and his fondness for an author whose very name is anathema to the wingnuts who continue to flog this war to this very day, it seems entirely possible that someone wanted Tillman silenced. I hope, but am not optimistic, that this probe will tell us who that was.