WMWG Part 7; 1998

1998...

·         February 23^rd, 1998 ... Bin Laden faxed a Shari’a (an Islamic law) to a London newspaper. In the contents Bin Laden explains that the U.S. had been occupying the land of two Holy places, plundering riches and trying to use the Arabian Peninsula to attack Muslims. He said by committing these ‘sins’ America was declaring war on God and Muslims and also made a call to every Muslim that it was their duty to kill Americans and their allies, whenever possible.

·         More young men and boys started going to al-Qaeda camps to learn how to wage war over Americans.

Now since Bin Laden has the money, power, and protection more and more Muslims, and other ethnic groups from the Middle East, are beginning to listen to him. Plus, he’s in an alliance with Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader and the person who thinks Allah has sent him to bring peace to his nation. This is getting more and more dangerous.

·         August 7^th, 1998 ... Two Saudis detonate a car bomb outside of the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. 9 minutes later, An Egyptian detonated a car bomb outside of the American Embassy in Tanzania. Bin Laden directed these attacks.

·         Some people think these attacks that Bin Laden was directing were ploys to lure the U.S. into Afghanistan to kill more Americans.

·         August 17^th, 1998 ... Clinton, dealing with his sex scandal fiasco at the time, decided to conduct a surgical airstrike against Bin Laden.

·         August 20^th, 1998 ... One air strike was to be at the Zawar Kili training camp, which Haqqani and Bin Laden built together. Many battles were also fought here throughout the 80’s and 90’s. This was air strike was called “Operation Infinite Reach”.

·         Unconfirmed reports say that some of the Tomahawk missiles were salvaged when they didn’t explode on impact, and Bin Laden sold them to China.

Since the book actually says these reports have never been confirmed, I’m leaning slightly towards a conspiracy theory.

·         “The war has only just begun; the Americans should not await the answer.” – Al-Zawahri, Deputy of al-Qaeda

WMWG Part 8; 2000

2000...

·         October 12^th, 2000 ... The USS Cole, one of our missile destroyers, arrived at the Yemeni Port to top off its fuel tanks. Two Arabs pulled up to the destroyer in a Skiff boat and detonated a bomb made of hundreds of pounds of C-4 that was packed away in the boat. A 36 by 36 foot hole ripped through the destroyer killing 17 and wounding 39. The suicide bombers turned out to be from al-Qaeda. It’s been said that Bin Laden supervised the entire attack.

·         Bin Laden wanted to lure the U.S. into Afghanistan to mire them in an unwinnable war just like the Soviets.

·         During this time was when Bush and Al Gore were fighting for the presidency and Florida’s ballots.

It seems like every time something of the U.S.’s gets bombed or threatened, something ‘more important’ is happening in the U.S. events that somewhat overshadows the rising terrorism.

·         Richard Clarke, who was the National Coordinator for Security during the Clinton Administration, kept pushing the priority of terrorism to Condoleezza Rice, the National Coordinator for Security during the Bush Administration.

WMWG Part 9; 2001

2001...

·         June 30^th, 2001 ... CIA issued a report to the president, the “Senior Executive Intelligence Brief” and it included the article, “Bin Laden Threats Are Real”. But members of the Bush Administration – Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and even Bush himself – continued to doubt the seriousness of Bin Laden.

·         Then, Bush received a confidential document, “President’s Daily Brief” and included a terrorism assessment headlined “Bin Laden determined to strike in the U.S.” This was the 36^th occasion in the preceding 8 months the CIA had alerted the White House of threats posed by al-Qaeda or Bin Laden.

·         Clarke kept harassing Rice to do something about Bin Laden, and kept challenging her through emails right up until 9-11 happened.

This is the epitome of why people don’t think women should be in politics, they don’t listen. I wonder how 2001 and ultimately our future would’ve been shaped if people like Richard Clarke still held an office; Or even going so far to say what would it have been like if Al Gore was president?

Also, this book heavily critiques the Bush Administration for ‘doing nothing’ when told of the terrorism and Bin Laden’s plans. Looking back it doesn’t look like they really did much, and it is so easy to force the blame on the one who is supposed to be our leader during this time.

·         September 11^th, 2001 ... Biggest attack on America, and this made us declare war on Afghanistan.

Here’s another thought.

WWII- People, mostly women, went to work and rallied around the war. Short wars can pull us out of a depression. We also had those news reels that would show what was going on with our boys overseas. I don’t know of one time that the government during this time had a big scandal because of lies and deceit.

Vietnam- The baby boomers from WWII were growing up and trying to find their own ideas, beliefs, etc. Then Johnson kept lying about what was really going on during the war, then Watergate happened with Nixon, and then Ford ended up pardoning Nixon. And all of this basically pissed everyone off and no one trusted the government. So people started protesting the ‘unwinnable’ Vietnam War.

Now Bush supposedly dismisses the terrorist threats until 9-11 happens; and when Pat Tillman gets killed the military or anyone else doesn’t have the decency to actually say what happened to our American Soldier. History repeats itself when people are too ignorant to remember it.

·         October 7^th, 2001 ... President said the military began strikes against al-Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. This first stint of the war was called “Operation Enduring Freedom”. The president gave a speech that was broadcasted over Pat Tillman’s NFL game.

·         The first strikes happened less than an hour before Bush gave this speech. 4 U.S. ships, 1 U.S. submarine, and a British submarine launched a barrage of cruise missiles toward Afghanistan.

·         October 19^th 2001 ... The first U.S. ground troops – Army Rangers – landed 80 miles south oh Kandahar.

·         At first, the Bush Administration didn’t want to involve many troops other than Special Operations Forces in the conflict – he relied more on airstrikes and ex-Mujahedeen militias. The militias received some 70 million dollars from the U.S. Most of these fighters had been affiliated with the Northern Alliance (Remember? The people fighting the Taliban for power.)

After the U.S. left Afghanistan in 1991, there was a lot of infighting between the groups of people, and whenever power switched to another alliance or the Taliban, many people would desert their militias and follow that power. So, how do we know the ‘ex’ Mujahedeen militias we just gave 70 million dollars to won’t start switching sides?

·         November 13^th 2001 ... The Northern Alliance, along with American bombers, took control of Kabul; forcing the Taliban to scatter. Bush started making secret plans to invade Iraq.

·         December 5^th, 2001 ... The first three members of the American military to die were victims of Fratricide because an inexperienced Air Force tactical air controller gave coordinates to the American troops instead of the Afghan troops.

Fratricide or ‘Friendly Fire’ is when, like during a firefight, someone is killed by their own troops.

The bomb that was dropped almost killed Hamid Karzai, the U.S. appointed leader of Afghanistan. The CIA had been in contact with him since the 80’s.

·         When U.S. landed in Afghanistan, Bin Laden fled to Tora Bora, a mountain with an extensive network of caves and tunnels. U.S. began bombing the caves trying to kill Bin Laden and his people, other officers and such of the Taliban.

·         Bin Laden seemed as if he would surrender and accept death, even making a radio broadcast to other Muslims saying he was sorry for losing this war in the name of Allah. So the U.S. stopped bombing and went into Tora Bora to find Bin Laden’s body, except it wasn’t there. While the U.S. thought the broadcast was a farewell address, it was really a broadcast to keep his troops fighting so he could make a deal with the Eastern Alliance to help him escape from the mountain. He paid them $6 million.

This is the first time the term “Eastern Alliance” has been used in the text. I’m guessing this is the alliance between the Taliban and Pakistan.

·         November 2001 ... (I’m guessing this was before the bombing of Tora Bora) Hank Crumpton, the man who ran the CIA’s operations in Afghanistan went to the Oval Office to warn the president that there weren’t enough troops in Afghanistan to seal off Tora Bora. A week earlier, 1200 Marines arrived in Kandahar. But when Crumpton tried moving some of the Marines to Tora Bora, no one would do it.

·         “Responsibility for blocking the avenues of escape from Tora Bora thus fell almost entirely to Afghan militia fighters from the Eastern Alliance – A motley assortment of mutually hostile former Mujahedeen commanders who were deeply suspicious of American ambitions in Afghanistan, but whose loyalty had nevertheless been expensively rented by the CIA. In retrospect, the decision to rely on these untrustworthy warlords for such an utterly crucial task probably doomed the mission from the outset.” (Krakauer Location 2471).

Bin Laden had close ties with these men going back as far as 15 years. So instead of killing him like they were paid to do, they helped him into Pakistan.

Exactly what I’ve been thinking.

·         Later, when Bin Laden had escaped, he made a speech gloating about it.

WMWG Part 10; 2002

2002...

·         Hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters were being killed, and the rest had fled to the countryside or Pakistan. But the 3 enemy leaders at the top of the hit list were still at large. Those leaders were Bin Laden, Mohammed Omar, and Haqqani. Omar had recently promoted Haqqani to commander in chief of the Taliban.

·         After Bin Laden and Haqqani escaped to Pakistan, they started reorganizing their network of fighters in the Pakistani city of Miram Shah, where Haqqani would direct Taliban strikes on the U.S. and NATO for many years.

·         “War is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics and of troops by politicians.” – Chris Hedges, “A Culture of Atrocity”.

·         By April 8^th, 2002 ... By this time Pat Tillman had weighed all the options of enlisting into the military, and decided it was what he needed to do. Pat’s brother Kevin also decided to enlist with him. They decided to enlist as ordinary grunts instead of taking the officer path.

·         May 4^th, 2002 ... Pat and his long time girlfriend Marie were married. A week later Kevin and Pat signed contracts committing them to three years service as Army Rangers. Pat and Kevin’s parents, along with Marie’s family, tried to have a kind of intervention to talk them out of doing it.

11 pages of notes later and we’re at the part where Pat joins the Army.

·         June 2002 ... Kevin and Pat were sworn into the military

·         July 8^th, 2002 ... Moved to Fort Benning, Georgia.

·         Because of his celebrity, the Bush Administration turned his enlistment into a marketing bonanza for the “Global War on Terror”. People like Rumsfeld continued to track basically everything Pat did. The Major General John Vines even wrote letter to him begging him to join the 82nd Airborne Division instead of becoming a Ranger.

·         September 20^th 2002 ... Pat and Kevin completed basic training. Stayed in Georgia for another 5 weeks to complete Advanced Individual Training, which is very similar to Basic.

·         October 2002 ... Bush tried persuading to UN Security Council to authorize the use of force in Iraq.

·         Pat and Kevin finished Airborne school and the Ranger Indoctrination Program shortly before Christmas of this year. They were based at Fort Lewis, Washington.

From July to almost Christmas, Pat only got to see Marie a handful of times. In the text, it provides many excerpts of Pat’s private journal. In these excerpts you can see how much he truly loves and cherishes his wife. It is such a beautiful thing to see the inside of a person’s heart in that way when they are separated from their loved ones for so long and going through such a hell as boot camp. The excerpts also show a glimpse at what the military is really like and what kind of changes he had to assimilate to from his normal everyday life.

WMWG Part 11; 2003

2003...

·         2 months after the 9/11 attacks, the president and his officials starting going after Iraq to try and take down Saddam Hussein.

·         February 5^th 2003 ... Secretary of State Colin Powell went to the United Nations to make the president’s argument for invading Iraq. Said Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction and had conspired with al-Qaeda to carry our terrorist attacks against Americans.

·         March 2003 ... Pat and Kevin are flown to an airfield outside of Ar’ar, Saudi Arabia.

·         “I hope this war is about more than oil, money and power, I doubt that it is. If anything happens to Kevin, and my fears of our intent in this country prove true, I will never forgive this world.” – Pat Tillman (Krakauer Location 3100).

During this down time before the invasion of Iraq, Pat got his hands on some of Emerson’s writings and started going through them like wild fire. It hurts my heart to know a life such as this was taken and no one had the decency to tell the truth about it!

·         March 20^th 2003 ... 3 dozen Tomahawk missiles leave warships in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea to target Baghdad, Iraq.

·         “My heart goes out to those who will suffer. Whatever your politics, whatever you believe is right or wrong, the fact is most of those who will feel the wrath of this ordeal want nothing more than to live peacefully.” – Pat Tillman (Krakauer Location 3143).

·         March 23^rd 2003 ... A convoy of the Army’s 507^th Maintenance Company, unknowingly entered Nasiriyah. I military town in Iraq. Fedayeen militia fighters (Iraq’s militia) attack the convoy. One of those was Pfc. Jessica Lynch. Iraqi sources told Marines that she was being held at Saddam Hospital and 8 days later an operation was set into motion to rescue her. Pat and Kevin were part of this operation. Media went crazy over the rumors of the story, that she “had fought to the death, killing many Fedayeen fighters” When in actuality her humvee crashed and she was captured.

·         Jim Wilkinson – arranged for the reporters to interview sources about Jessica Lynch’s story since he was the “perception manager” for the Iraq war in the Bush Administration.

“Wilkinson was the president’s man on the ground at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Qatar, controlling and carefully shaping info about the war disseminated to the international press... Wilkinson simply sowed a little misinformation where it would have the most impact, sat back, and watched his fabrication go viral, propagated by the media frenzy that he knew would ensue.” (Krakauer 3311).

·         Cheney reported that he thought the Americans invading Iraq would be greeted as liberators. Wilkinson’s job was to divert attention away from negative parts of the war, to continue to help market the war for support.

·         When Jessica Lynch was captured, Marines were advancing to Nasiriyah, to cut off its bridges. When they got there they found the 507^th Maintenance Company and had to take their wounded to safety while trying to seize the bridges and hold off the Fedayeen fighters. A total cluster of confusion, especially when the communications were shut down by a number of reasons.

One of the reasons this happened was because the troops were told that the population of Nasiriyah were Shiite Muslims that hated Saddam and they would see the Americans as liberators. This was not the case.

(In 1991 the ‘first’ Bush led the Shia Muslims to believe the U.S. would support them if they rose up against Saddam. We actually did nothing and many Shia were murdered. Deep seated hatred for Americans grew, I’m sure.)

One of the Companies of Marines was mistaken for the enemy and were being attacked by an American jet aircraft, an A-10 Warthog.

I need to revisit my analysis of World War II, the Vietnam War, and now this war. When the government LIES to their people of course they wouldn’t be getting any future war support. Even if Wikinson was just going by orders, it’s hard to accept that he lied about one of our wars. And not giving the troops going into Nasiriyah the proper information (Like, how could no one in the CIA or any other intelligence agency not know Nasiriyah was a military town? We can fabricate facts about weapons of mass destruction but we can’t find out any tangible evidence about the places we’re sending our boys to die?) Before sending them ultimately to death.

“When the military is confronted with the fratricidal carnage that predictably results, denial and dissembling are the time-honored responses of first resort.” (Krakauer 3628).

·         March 28^th, 2003 ... General Tommy Franks ordered an inquiry to what caused the casualties in Nasiriyah. The investigation was completed a year after it started, but eyewitnesses were never interviewed, and video shots from the cockpits of the Warthogs went missing after the incident.

·         April 9^th, 2003 ... The capital of Iraq fell to American forces. Pat and Kevin stayed in Baghdad for 5 weeks.

·         May 1^st 2003 ... Rumsfeld had a news conference where he announced that ‘major combat activity’ in Afghanistan had ended because the ‘bulk of this county was secure’. But really the Taliban and al-Qaeda were just regrouping.

·         May 15^th 2003 ... Kevin and Pat returned home and began preparing for Ranger School.

·         November 28^th 2003... Pat and Kevin received their Ranger tabs and were promoted to specialist.

“It was becoming apparent that the war in Iraq was not turning out a predicted. Increasingly, critics of the administration were comparing it to Vietnam.” (Krakauer Location 3939).

Bin Laden used the invasion to his advantage, since the American occupation in Iraq enraged Arab men enough that they joined the ranks of al-Qaeda.

·         December 2003 ... Pat’s football agent tried to pull some strings to get Pat an early honorable discharge since he had already served in a war zone – So he could get him back to playing football – but Pat refused to do it.

WMWG Part 12; 2004

2004 ...

·         April 7^th 2004 ... Pat and Kevin are deployed to Afghanistan.

New offensive – Operation Mountain Storm. Patrolling Afghanistan-Pakistan border to eliminate pockets of Taliban support in border villages. Data Khail and Zaka Khail tribes were the protectors of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in this province.

·         April 14^th 2004 ... Pat and Kevin, along with the rest of Alpha Company, began scouring the border looking for enemy forces. They never found much, making some soldiers think it was just a “Wild goose chase”.

·         April 21^st 2004 ... 14 pages of notes later and we come to where the book first opened. The day Pat Tillman died. When Alpha Company was patrolling the border, one of their Humvees broke down and was unable to be fixed, towed, or airlifted out of the area. Lieutenant Uthlaut was told by his superiors that he needed to find a way to get the damaged Humvee 12 miles to the nearest paved highway so the wrecker could take it back to the base. Uthlaut was also told by superiors, against his own thoughts, that he needed to split the company so one part could escort the Humvee to the highway and the other part could put ‘boots on the ground’ in the last village that needed to be patrolled in the mission. So the company was split and Serial One (the first 6 Humvees going to the village) and Serial Two (The last 6 Humvees escorting the wrecked Humvee to the highway) headed in different directions. But 15 minutes after splitting up, the Afghan who was towing the wrecked Humvee thought it would be a better idea to follow Serial One’s convoy. After turning back, Serial Two was attacked. A squad, including Pat Tillman, from Serial One scaled a small cliff to help fend off enemy forces on Serial Two. The squad began getting fired at from unknown locations and with weapons that the Taliban rarely used... Serial Two was firing at its own rangers in the squad. Since Afghan Military Forces were with the squad, that added to the confusion. Serial Two Incorrectly identified the AMF as the Taliban and began to heavily shoot at the squad. Many of the men of Serial Two that did the shooting were described as “trigger-happy” and was also said that many of them had never been in a firefight and did not positively identify their targets before shooting. Tillman’s autopsy later showed he was killed by a SAW gun that was fired by Trevor Alders from Serial Two.

·         April 22^nd 2004 ... Pat’s family was informed that Pat had died in an ambush. After interviewing Rangers from both serials, three commanders confirmed an investigation needed to be done.

·         April 23^rd 2004 ... Word went up the chain of command (The three major people involved in the case- McChrystal, Nixon, and Bailey) – even to the Pentagon and White House – that Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire. The Tillman family was not kept informed about the ongoing investigation.

The odd and irregular things done during Pat Tillman’s investigation are appalling. After Pat’s body was removed from the cliff, pieces of his brain and other various parts were still laying where he died. Supposedly, the parts were picked up and sealed in a canister to be put back with Pat’s body in the States. Instead, the canister disappeared and was never found.

Also, the standard operating procedure for when someone is KIA is to leave the uniform on the body until shipped back to the States for autopsy. This was not the case for Pat Tillman. Pat’s uniform and armor were taken off at Salerno and out into a trash bag before the body was flown to Bagram. A sergeant later testified that someone told him to burn the evidence in the bag. Including the last notebook Pat ever wrote in.

There are no words to profess how appalled and shocked I am that this behavior goes on during a governmental investigation of a dead soldier.

“Genuine leaders, like skillful chess players, must foresee the possible effects of their moves.” – AP United States History textbook.

·         April 24^th 2004 ... No rangers were allowed to tell Kevin, or anyone else for that matter, that Pat had died by friendly fire.

·         April 26^th 2004 ... Pat’s body along with Kevin landed at the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for autopsy. The medical examiners were furious that Pat arrived with NO clothes whatsoever; losing possible evidence that could have been obtained from the clothes. The examiners were told Pat was killed by the Taliban. The Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) was also uninformed about the suspected fratricide (When regulations state that ALL claims of fratricide be ran through the CID for investigation as well.) The CID was lied to by various legal advisors for the 3 investigators so the CID felt that it did not need to dig any deeper into the case.

·         April 30^th 2004 ... Pat Tillman was cremated. Silver Star was awarded.

While all this was going on, McChrystal was recommending Pat for the Silver Star medal. But all the recommendation material was written to say that Pat was killed by enemy fire.

It’s as if he was trying to make up for the fact that he was lying to everyone. What would the Pat rather have, truth for his family or a medal he received for fantasized enemy fire?

During this time things started to float to the surface. Things like the torture and abuse of Iraqi inmates on 60 Minutes and the combat in Fallujah. The Bush Admin. saw this as an opportunity to up the approval ratings so Bush could win a 2^nd term. Just like the Jessica Lynch story from 13 months earlier.

The Family Peace of Mind Act of violated when the Communications Director disseminated Bush’s statement of Tillman’s death less than 24 hours of the Tillman family learning of his death.

·         May 1^st 2004 ... McChrystal went from Brigadier General to Major General.

I have been taught since I was a child that if I did something wrong, I would and should take responsibility for my actions. My brain cannot comprehend the lengths these military officials would go to cover something like this up. Lying always makes everything worse.

·         May 3^rd 2004 ... Pat’s memorial service. The family was still not told of the fratricide. Days later, when the final report of the investigation said that Pat was indeed killed by a Ranger in Serial Two, the report ran up the chain of command and then simply disappeared when it got to Nixon and Bailey’s hands. On May 8^th McChrystal appointed someone else to do another investigation. The second investigation was completed on May 16^th and also said fratricide was the cause of death. This investigation was kept under tight wraps.

·         May 22^nd 2004 ... The Rangers returned to Fort Lewis.

Bailey testified later on that the only reason the Army finally came clean (May 24^th) about the lies is because Kevin was about to find out on his own what really happened to Pat.

·         May 28^th 2004 ... The chain of command decided to release the new statement on Pat’s death the start of the Memorial Day holiday so the story would be more obscured. The news ended up being leaked to the press before Pat’s parents could be notified.

·         June 16^th 2004 ... Tillman family received a briefing of the second investigation report. Disciplinary action was taken in response to Pat’s death. 5 men, including Uthlaut were busted out of the Rangers and sent to the regular Army. Bailey and Nixon were promoted.

·         September 19^th 2004 ... During a football game the Arizona Cardinals honored Pat with a halftime ceremony. Pat’s mother, Dannie Tillman began to seek out information on why the Army lied to her family and the Nation.

·         November 8^th 2004 ... After George W. Bush was elected for a second term yet another investigation was conducted to address the questions brought up by the Tillman Family.

Shortly after Pat’s death his friends and family created the Pat Tillman Foundation.

WMWG Part 13; 2005

2005...

·         March 2005 ... The third investigation was completed, but did not answer all of the family’s questions.

·         July 2005 ... Kevin’s contract in the Army was up.

·         August 2005 ... Department of Defense said it would conduct a ‘review of the Army’s handling of the Tillman incident.’