Bush Knew Tillman was Killed by Friendly Fire

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tillman.jpgWell, the Bush administration sure does keep us busy at Mother Jones. We were just kicking back and relaxing a bit after the completion (and nomination for a national magazine award) of our massive Lie by Lie timeline. No rest for the weary: The AP reports today that Bush and the military knew almost immediately that former football star Pat Tillman had probably died from friendly fire. Seven days after Tillman’s death, Bush received a memo about the likely circumstances. He eulogized Tillman a few days later with no reference to friendly fire, and the Pentagon then deceptively awarded the dead soldier a posthumous Silver Star—an award for valor in combat. Tillman’s family learned a full month after the memo was written that their son died in friendly fire.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

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