Accountability Aren't Us

From the beginning this story smelled like three day old fish, two years later it may be the whale that beached itself on the limburger of fermented fish.

Criminal Probe in Tillman Case Set to Open: "The Army originally reported that Tillman was killed in a firefight with enemy forces in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan near the Pakistani border, and officials heralded his heroism with a tale of how he was charging a hill against the enemy when he was shot. Weeks later, after a nationally televised memorial service, the Army revealed that he had been gunned down by members of his own unit who had rounded a corner in a Humvee and mistook him and a coalition Afghan fighter for the enemy.

Mary Tillman said yesterday that she believes evidence of a crime has existed all along, and that the family's repeated calls for a criminal investigation were ignored until now. 'It is completely obvious that this should have been done from the very beginning,' she said. 'The military has had every opportunity to do the right thing, and they haven't. They knew all along that something was seriously wrong, and they just wanted to cover it up.'

Patrick Tillman Sr. expressed skepticism that the new investigation will yield additional answers. 'I think it's another step,' he said. 'But if you send investigators to reinvestigate an investigation that was falsified in the first place, what do you think you're going to get?'"

Ummmm, nothing? These last six years have been a lesson in learning that the truth is mutable. If the administration is at fault then whoever revealed the truth must be punished. If the military is at fault then it has fallen futher into disrepute than anticipated. If the unit is at fault, then our training leaves a lot to be desired. If the populace is at fault, then we must hang our head in shame, because we have failed each other, and that is a crime that no civilization can truly survive.

We are all at fault, and the sooner we realize that we are judged as a nation and that our behavior influences the world in ways our leaders refuse to anticipate, the sooner we might be able to save the spinning globe that orbits an insignificant star on the outer reaches of the galaxy.

Tags: Pat Tillman. friendly fire,