After Tillman Death, Army Clamped Down

From the AP via the Huffington Post courtesy of AlterNet:

Within hours of Pat Tillman's death, the Army went into information-lockdown mode, cutting off phone and Internet connections at a base in Afghanistan, posting guards on a wounded platoon mate, and ordering a sergeant to burn Tillman's uniform.

New Army investigative documents reviewed by The Associated Press describe how the military sealed off information about Tillman's death from all but a small ring of soldiers. Officers quietly passed their suspicion of friendly fire up the chain to the highest ranks of the military, but the truth did not reach Tillman's family for five weeks.

The clampdown, and the misinformation issued by the military, lie at the heart of a burgeoning congressional investigation.

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For the moment, this sounds like it came from some very high brass indeed: four generals are among the nine officers implicated in the investigation, but we do not yet know if the coverup originated in the White House. My money's on the scandal not coming from the Oval Office; after all, "military intelligence" isn't the best known English language oxymoron for no good reason. But I will venture to speculate that Pentagon officials, when making their decision to turn Tillman's death into a propaganda effort, understood well how their Commander-in-Chief plays the game, and simply tried to emulate their boss' tactics. That is, the Bush people have obviously expanded greatly the already existing culture of lies within the White House such that it is simply business as usual. For everybody.

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