Luis Carlos Montalvan: June 2008

Thursday, June 26, 2008

U.S. must keep its word

Thursday, June 26, 2008 - Page updated at 02:09 AM

Iraq War

U.S. must keep its word

As military officers, we took on the mission and risk of helping the Iraqi people. We made sacrifices, as did the soldiers and Marines we led. So it is alarming to us to find now that nearly 5 million of those same Iraqi people have become displaced, more than 2 million of whom live as refugees in neighboring countries. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, this represents the highest percentage of people seeking asylum worldwide.

It appears that rather than rescue them from a desperate situation, we have merely altered the form of their predicament. Today, there are about 750,000 Iraqi refugees living in Jordan. They are not permitted to work, and so they either live on dwindling savings or subject themselves to shameless exploitation, working for a fraction of an appropriate salary.

Medical care is scarce and frequently cost-prohibitive. Housing is difficult to come by. Only recently has Jordan allowed Iraqi children to attend schools, but the policy shift means little because there are simply not enough school seats or teachers to handle the sudden influx of students. Iraqi children must often work to help their families stave off destitution, and young girls are frequently compelled by desperation into a life of prostitution.

Many Iraqis living in Jordan have had no choice but to overstay their visas, and so they live as fugitives from the law, perpetually fearful that they, and their families, will be forcibly sent back to Iraq where death most certainly awaits them.

With the price tag for hosting refugees climbing into the billions, and with little financial assistance from the international community, Jordan is anxious to see them go. To compound this dreary scenario, Iraqis are discovering that there is nowhere else for them to go. Virtually no Western countries are willing to resettle more than a pittance of refugees.

We find it disappointing that the United States, our country, which staked our lives on saving the Iraqi people, is among the worst performers in this crisis. What is further disheartening to us is that many of these applicants at one time risked their own lives to aid our military forces in Iraq.

As service members, we view our nation's role in the world as a leader. We joined the military to be leaders ourselves and to fight for just causes. But we can hardly claim righteousness when the very people we went to liberate find themselves imprisoned in such dire circumstances — circumstance that we helped create — and then refuse to offer them further support. Millions need our help, and they need it now.

With the highly unstable security situation lingering in Iraq, they cannot go home. With the dire conditions in Jordan and other countries hosting refugees, they cannot stay where they are for long. And with the fact that 63 percent of refugees hold college degrees, making them invaluable to the reconstruction effort, we feel it is imperative to safeguard them while Iraq climbs back to her feet. The most substantial way we can do that is to provide meaningful financial assistance.

The United States pledged its support to the Iraqi people and sacrificed the lives and health of many service members to give it. We believe the honorable thing to do is keep our word. If the United States wishes to remain a leader in the world by virtue of both strength and humanity, it must not forsake its promises.

— Luis Carlos Montalvan, retired U.S. Army captain, Brooklyn, N.Y., and Tyler Boudreau, former U.S. Marine captain, Newton, Mass.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

The Iraqi Humanitarian Crisis...

Help those who helped us
By Luis Carlos Montalvan and Tyler Boudreau
Tuesday, June 17, 2008

As combat officers in Iraq, we witnessed the suffering and forced migration of millions of Iraqi civilians. These same people are now struggling to survive as refugees in neighboring countries while millions more have been displaced within Iraq, enduring unimaginable hardship and danger.

They have lost their possessions and their livelihoods; they have lost their homes; they have lost their loved ones. The tragedies are indeed countless and they are in no small part a result of the war we started. As American officers we feel it is our nation's moral obligation to address this crisis.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in 2007 Iraqis represented the highest percentage of people seeking asylum worldwide with a 98 percent increase in applications. From 2004 to 2007, Iraqis seeking asylum moved from the 9th largest population to the 1st.

In comparison to other industrialized countries, the United States has performed poorly in granting Iraqis asylum. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development statistics show that Sweden has taken the most sympathetic approach to Iraqis, with 90 percent of those claiming refugee status allowed to stay. Greece and Turkey are among other countries that have granted asylum to a great number of Iraqis.

The United States must begin to take this refugee crisis seriously and succor the people whose homeland we have disrupted - the very homeland we set out to liberate. Perhaps our proudest legacy from Vietnam was welcoming of over a million Vietnamese who had aided U.S. forces during that conflict.

America's best and possibly last chance to extract a positive legacy from Iraq may depend on our giving humanitarian assistance to those Iraqis who have become imperiled by their association with the U.S.-led intervention in their country.
Currently, the United States has two refugee coordinators working for the Assistant Secretary of State for population, refugees, and migration. However, the office of the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs has no presence in Jordan, where 750,000 Iraqi refugees are suffering.

Many of these refugees have provided U.S. forces with invaluable services. One such individual, whose case we have been trying to press with immigration authorities, is a translator named Ali, who helped the U.S. military in 2003 and 2004.

At a time when we had no translators assigned to us, Ali stepped forward and helped us communicate our intentions to the local people in the Al Anbar Province. Ali's courage was responsible for saving many lives, including those of American service members.

Sadly, Ali has remained trapped in Jordan for two years enduring what he describes modestly as "harsh circumstances." He tells us that food and housing is scarce, health care is inaccessible, schooling for children is largely unavailable, and that only people who have residences are eligible for jobs.

But only "businessmen" are afforded residence. Visas in Jordan are generally granted for only three months, which puts most Iraqi refugees, including Ali, into illegal status, which makes them highly exploitable. The circumstances for refugees are not just "harsh" - they are dire.

When the United States desperately needed Ali's help in Iraq they got it. But when Ali had to flee because of threats to his life, when he came in to his own time of need, the U.S. failed to reciprocate.

We and other soldiers who once worked with Ali are trying arduously to facilitate his request for asylum under the provisions of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and via applications for asylum through the United Nations.

The actual and virtual absence of the UN's Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs in complex humanitarian emergencies often encumbers the Department of State with the role of coordinating international relief. But the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has consistently struggled with this task because of its routinely unilateral approach to problems within a multilateral system. One former senior State Department official told us that this "USAID gap" was one of the major hurdles he had to contend with in his position.

Any meaningful assistance for Iraqi refugees must include a realistic risk assessment by the Department of Homeland Security and a substantial increase to admissions into the United States, particularly for Iraqis who have assisted U.S. forces.

It will also require a great deal more cooperation between the State Department and the Agency for International Development to improve financial burden-sharing from donor states and operational productivity from all the agencies assisting Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons.

Finally it will require strong pressure on the Iraqi government to provide its own share of support. If the credibility of the Iraqi government lies in its humanitarian commitment to Iraqi people, then perhaps the credibility of our own government lies in the same.

Luis Carlos Montalván served as a U.S. Army captain in Iraq from 2003 to 2006 and is currently recovering from combat wounds. Tyler Boudreau served as a U.S. Marine Corps captain in Iraq in 2004 and is the author of the forthcoming "Packing Inferno: The Unmaking of a Marine."

This article is very important to us. The humanitarian crisis inside and out of Iraq is dire. The U.S. has said that it will attempt to give 12,000 Iraqis asylum this year. That number is pathetic. Guess who we have to thank for this policy?~Luis

Monday, June 16, 2008

Stop-Loss = Back-door Draft = Incompetent Generals...

US soldier refuses to report for active duty in Iraq

14 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A month after US army reservist Matthis Chiroux publicly refused to deploy to Iraq, the former sergeant on Sunday set himself up for possible prosecution by failing to report for active duty with his unit in South Carolina.

"Tonight at midnight, I may face further action from the army for refusing to reactivate to participate in the Iraq occupation," Chiroux told reporters in Washington.

"I stand here today in defense of those who have been stripped of their voices in this occupation, the warriors of this nation...", Chiroux read from a statement as his father Rob, who had travelled to Washington from Alabama to support his son on Father's Day, stood beside him.

Last month, Chiroux rejected an order calling him back to active duty in Iraq, saying he considers the war "illegal and unconstitutional."

Chiroux served five years in the army, with tours in Afghanistan, Japan, Germany and the Philippines.

He was honorably discharged last year and was placed in the Individual Ready Reserves (IRR), a pool of former soldiers who can be "reactivated" in a national emergency or war.

Prior to the Iraq war, IRR members were rarely recalled to active duty, according to the Military Times, an independent newspaper for members of the US armed forces and their families.

"Many believed they never would be called -- but when the army found itself stretched by unexpected combat demands in Iraq in the summer of 2004 it began issuing mobilization orders," Military Times wrote in an article published a year ago on Sunday.

According to the paper, hundreds of IRR members "refused to report or simply ignored their mailed mobilization orders."

Matthis' father Rob, a rocket scientist who lives in the army town of Huntsville, Alabama, said mobilizing IRR members was a form of back-door draft.

"If our country is in such a dire emergency that we need to conscript manpower, congress has to vote to reinstate the draft," the elder Chiroux told AFP.

"But they won't do that because if congress said we need to bring back the general draft, the war in Iraq would be resolved very quickly," he said.

"Moms and dads, who represent millions and millions of voters, would say: wait a minute -- you want to draft my kid? Iraq's got to stop."

Stop-loss is indeed a back-door draft. It is shamefull for the military to require servicemembers who have served numerous tours honorably to be recalled again and again from the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). Rather than increase the size of the active military and decrease our ability for national guardsmen to respond to local crises in their states, the past 7 years have decreased the overall readiness of our military, attritted many of our best personnel, has caused an operational tempo (OPTEMPO) that is unsustainable, is clogging our VA system with new claims for disorders associated with the shortage of people, etc. This is yet another example of the incompetence and dereliction of our General Officer Corps.~Luis

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Petraeus' Lies...

Arming our own enemies in Iraq
Bush officials claim that Iran has supplied grenade launchers to Iraqi militants -- but the real source of the weapons is U.S. negligence.
By Gareth Porter for Salon.com

Jun. 06, 2008 In recent months, Gen. David Petraeus charged that Iran has supplied powerful rocket-propelled grenade launchers to Shiite militias in Iraq. But according to the U.S. government's own reports, there is no evidence to support that charge. In fact, the vast majority of RPGs in the hands of Shiite militants have come from either U.S.-purchased weapons intended for Iraq's new security forces, or from Saddam Hussein's old stockpiles, which the U.S. failed to secure when it took control of the country.

The Bush administration has long sought to create the impression that Iran has been playing a major military role in Iraq by supplying arms to Shiite militias, including the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's powerful Mahdi army. But to date, U.S. military officials have offered scant or even dubious evidence of Iranian military involvement in Iraq -- and Petraeus' allegation about the RPGs is a clear-cut case of unsubstantiated charges.

Last October, and again in late December, Petraeus stated emphatically there was "absolutely no question" that Iran provided RPG-29s, a sophisticated anti-tank weapon, to Iraqi Shiite militiamen. He even called the RPG-29 an Iranian "signature weapon."

What Petraeus failed to mention, however, is that RPG-29s are manufactured by Russia, not Iran, and those that have shown up in Iraq apparently came from Syria. The Syrian government bought large numbers of RPG-29s from Russia in 1999 and 2000, many of which ended up being used by Hezbollah in the war against Israel in 2006, according to Israeli and Lebanese media reports. Even some U.S. military officials were quoted in the media in May 2006 as saying that they believed RPG-29s had been smuggled into Iraq from Syria.

Moreover, as Air Force Col. Scott Maw of the Multi-National Force Iraq (MNF-I) Strategic Communications Office told me in a telephone interview last week, "very few" RPG-29s have actually been found in Iraq. An examination of U.S. military press releases on weapons caches found in Shiite areas reveals no mention of RPG-29s. Additionally, the U.S. military has never displayed a captured one to reporters.

In a highly publicized February 2007 slide show, U.S. military briefers did include a picture of what was identified as a round to be fired by an Iranian-made RPG-7AT-1 launcher, a less advanced weapon than the RPG-29, although it did not depict the launcher itself. But the U.S. military has found no evidence of an Iranian pipeline of RPG-7s to Iraqi Shiite militants, either.

In more than two dozen MNF-I news releases on Iraqi Shiite weapons since early 2007, more than 200 RPGs are listed. Not a single one was identified as Iranian-made. That was not because of a lack of effort by the U.S. military, however, to determine whether captured weapons were of Iranian origin. Lt. Col. Steve Stover, the spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division, which is deployed in and around Baghdad, confirmed that explosives experts examine the findings at each cache site to determine the origin of the weapons. "Normally we say whether they are Iranian-manufactured or not," Stover said in a telephone interview.

Col. Maw said that the number of these weapons found in militants' possession is rising rapidly -- now more than 400 -- due to many discoveries being made by Iraqi Security Forces in recent months. "Very few of them are of recent manufacture," he said, suggesting that they came from Saddam Hussein's old stockpiles.

The U.S. command is so eager to highlight any weapons that can be linked to Iran that one MNF-I press release from last September singled out the discovery of four Iranian hand grenades. But that find hardly supported the Iranian-weapons narrative, because the grenades were found in an area frequented by Sunni militants associated with al-Qaida. (There is no reason to believe that Iran would arm extremist Sunni fighters, who consider both Iran and the Shiites as their arch enemies.)

In the early stages of the war, when the Bush administration was being criticized for its failure to prevent the looting of the Saddam Hussein regime's arms depots, Bush officials downplayed the importance of the weapons that disappeared. In October 2004, an unnamed senior administration official was quoted by CNN as saying that the weapons were "stuff you can buy anywhere."

Among the pilfered Iraqi weapons were thousands of RPG-7s, which soon turned up on Iraq's thriving black market. Malcolm Nance, an Arabic-speaking 20-year veteran of military and civilian U.S. intelligence, recalls being offered more than 20 RPG-7 rocket launchers and dozens of RPG rounds in a single trip to an arms bazaar in Sadr City in September 2003. According to Nance, RPG-7s were also on sale in black markets at another location in Baghdad and in at least seven other Iraqi cities.

In a telephone interview, Nance, who is now a counterterrorism consultant to Homeland Security and the Army's Special Operations Command, among other government agencies, recalled that the Iraqi RPG-7s were "so ubiquitous" that they were selling for a mere $50 each for the launcher and $5 each for an RPG missile.

Sunni fighters got large numbers of Saddam's RPG-7 stocks, as discovered by U.S. troops who were frequently attacked by them in the early stages of the insurgency. But the Mahdi army has also been able to purchase them easily over the past four years.

Equally troubling is the near certainty that Soviet-made RPGs purchased by the Pentagon in 2004 and turned over to Iraq's Ministry of Interior have fallen into the hands of the Mahdi army. Beginning in 2004, the Pentagon sent at least 7,500 Soviet-made RPG-7s and 4,500 Soviet-made under-barrel grenade launchers to Baghdad to be distributed to Iraqi Security Forces, along with hundreds of thousands of sidearms, according to a September 2007 report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. U.S. authorities hired civilian contractors to distribute the U.S.-purchased weapons, but had no system to account for them once they left U.S.-controlled warehouses in Iraq. As the New York Times reported last November, the Iraqi businessman contracted to distribute Pentagon-funded weapons from one depot was widely known to be stealing them from the warehouse by the truckload.

Only 499 of the 2,389 Soviet-made RPGs that were provided to the new Iraqi security forces could actually be accounted for through serial numbers, according to a report by the Defense Department Inspector General's Office in November -- and that was because they were still in the warehouse. No one knows how many of the other 1,900 RPGs entered the Iraqi arms market. Inspector General Claude Kicklighter told the Senate Appropriations Committee in March that there is an ongoing investigation into "pilferage of storage facilities" for the arms in Baghdad.

According to Col. Maw, MNF-I makes no effort to determine which, if any, of the Soviet-made RPGs came from the U.S.-financed weapons stocks. The munitions specialists responsible for assessing the weapons on site are unaware of the U.S.-financed RPGs from 2004, he said, so they would have no way of distinguishing them from other Soviet-made RPGs.

The Mahdi army had abundant opportunities to gain access to the U.S.-supplied weapons. During 2005 and 2006, the Shiite militants successfully infiltrated the Iraqi police as well as parts of the Iraqi military and government. The police in Sadr City were effectively controlled by the Mahdi army, and the militants had also penetrated several Iraqi army units stationed there. In Basra, the Mahdi army was part of a consortium of Shiite militias that used their control over a key police office to get access to various kinds of weapons.

The military official responsible for the decision to rush ahead with massive arms transfers to the Iraqi Security Forces in 2004 and 2005 -- despite the absence of a dependable tracking system and the wide reach of the Shiite militias -- was the man in charge of training and equipping those Iraqi forces: Gen. David Petraeus.

-- By Gareth Porter

General David H. Petraeus should be court-martialed for dereliction of duty. In time, more will be revealed about the extent of his (and others) failure to do their duty - take care of their troops, accomplish the mission, convey to Congress and American people the real needs of service members on the ground and the real Truth about the status of the Iraqi situation.~Luis

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Ranger Tillman & Colonel Westhusing - We MUST ACT!

'Like He Died Twice': Mary Tillman's Lonesome Road
By Dave Zirin

"If it had happened to someone else, Pat would be busting through walls to find the truth," said Mary Tillman, mother of Pat Tillman--NFL player, Army ranger and casualty of war.

Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan under shadowy circumstances that still pose more questions than answers. The media initially reported that Pat was killed by the Taliban. Weeks later it was revealed that it was a case of "friendly fire." Now, after four years, six investigations and two Congressional hearings, questions still linger about how Pat died, why it was covered up and who, in fact, knew.

Mary Tillman and her very private family are determined to go through whatever walls are in front of them, in a lonely quest for the truth. They want to expose the cover-up surrounding Pat's death. They also want to expose a criminal administration, an illegal war in Iraq and the way organizations like the NFL have been quick to exploit Pat's memory while doing nothing to help search for the truth. Speaking with Tillman about her new book, Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman, I found not a just a grieving parent, but a fierce advocate, a fighter with the kind of steady strength that is simply humbling.

What are some of the reasons that you wrote the book?

I wanted the public to understand what the military and government had done in trying to use Pat as a propaganda tool for the purposes of basically deflecting attention away from the serious things that were happening in the month of April 2004--such as Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, the President's approval ratings and the rising casualties; and also to use him as a martyr to rally support and patriotic feeling for the war in Iraq.

How do you explain to yourself the extraordinary lengths that the Pentagon went to in order to cover up the circumstances of Pat's death?

I think that they thought his death would be relatively easy to cover up, once they destroyed the evidence. They destroyed his uniform, and his equipment. And I think they thought that was sufficient, and they didn't realize that Pat's body was also evidence, in itself, that he had been killed by US rounds... He also had a military journal, as they all do, and Kevin requested that. (Kevin's his brother, they were in the same platoon.) He requested to have it back, and we were just told that they couldn't find it. So for two years we were just told that it was missing. And then after the belated criminal investigation was completed, we had a briefing and we were told that in fact the journal had been burned. Kevin, of course, asked why was it burned and they said that, "Well, it had tactical information in it" that was secretive or clandestine. I've talked to so many military people of many ranks, retired and everything else, and they all say that's absurd. If that were the case then they would confiscate the journals of every soldier after every mission.

Is it true that Pat, towards the end of his life, was starting to develop doubts about the war?

He always had doubts about the war in Iraq. Most of us did. I think very many people had doubts about it. They enlisted because of the events of September 11, and it was within weeks or a month or so after they enlisted that the President told the public his plans. You know, if people were really following progressive information, on the Internet, things like that, we would have known; by reading Al-Jazeera, TruthOut, things like that that, we would have known that this is in the works.

But unfortunately at that time, most of us were not reading those kinds of things. So Pat and Kevin were very concerned about this and we started doing a lot of reading. What we found at the time--through the fall of 2003 and the winter--was that Saddam seemed to be very inert at this point. And the fact is that when he was being the most vicious to his population, we were financing it. And the weapons of mass destruction--there didn't seem to be the intel to prove that. So we were very concerned. And once my sons got over there, then it became even more clear that there was no planning involved in this in terms of keeping the infrastructure intact or repairing the infrastructure, or providing even the basics for the people. And frankly, soldiers over there began to call the search for the weapons of mass destruction "looking for unicorns."Your son Kevin has come out publicly against the war, sentiments he has expressed in an article he wrote not long after Pat's birthday. Are those sentiments that you share?

Oh, definitely. What's so disturbing about after Pat's death is the way the media ran with the perception they had of him, some kind of caricature of who they thought he was. It was so off that it was like he died twice. And it was very offensive because people just jumped to conclusions, they never talked to him once, they never read anything about him. He was very complicated. He had many views, and he read constantly, and he was very curious. So that kind of thing was quite offensive....He made lots of mistakes like most people along the way, but he tried to learn from them. He definitely was not in favor of the war in Iraq. That is true and that caused concern for us after he was killed. And when the information looks so suspicious and so contradictory--we were concerned that he could have been killed on purpose.

Is that something you believe at this point?

It's possible, I suppose, to a tiny degree. But I think we've pretty much eliminated that simply because after looking at these documents for four years and being able to talk to more of the soldiers as they gradually get out of the military it's pretty clear that these soldiers were grossly negligent. I mean, they should have been court-martialed. But that would have meant much more embarrassment--at least they thought it would be too much embarrassment; I think this has proven to be much worse. They thought that it would be too embarrassing at the time to have this come out. And it would have...been embarrassing for the chain of command. So, on many levels, there are reasons that they would want to keep this quiet.

I want to ask about John McCain, because I've heard he's been very helpful with trying to get the truth out about Pat. Is that true?

He was very helpful initially, but I think that he believed that the situation probably wasn't nefarious at all and that the family would get the answers. But that wasn't the case. The investigation that he helped us get actually caused us to have more questions and at that point he started backing off. I think he thought that we were becoming sort of a political encumbrance to him, or could be.

He has said that the basis on which he will be elected or not will be the progress made in the war in Iraq. Obviously, talking about your case brings attention to everything that is so corrupt about the war.

Absolutely. And since we held the Administration in question and it's an administration that he has stood by, it would be very awkward for him. He definitely eased out of the situation. He didn't blatantly say he wouldn't help us, it's just that it became clear that he kind of drifted away. And, you know, I didn't want to push it, so I just looked elsewhere for help.

If John McCain were here right now, what would be one thing that you would like to say to him?

Actually, I would like to ask him if he had any inkling of the truth himself. I think I would like to ask him if he had any inkling of the truth when he was at the memorial service. I would certainly hope that he didn't...

Why have you pursued this in a solitary fashion as opposed to, say, the "Cindy Sheehan route?"

I respect the fact that Cindy Sheehan did what she did. She certainly brought attention to the war. But the problem is, with my case, and in the family's case in regards to Pat was that he was so high-profile, and I felt that it would be exploitive to do that. And so it was very difficult for me to figure out the best way to get answers without exploiting him--without exploiting ourselves--because you have to put yourselves out there. I was also worried about identifying with any particular faction because I didn't want people to say, you know, "what a crackpot." There are people saying that anyway, and we're trying to do this very carefully.
Also, this is not just about Pat. This is a pattern of behavior that the military has. Pat worked hard in his life and he developed a persona, and he gave us a voice. And we have an opportunity to use that voice and maybe we can get answers for ourselves that also help some of the other families that are fearful they've been lied to.

You seem like someone who has very much found a voice through this process, and yet you are described as a very private person. Are you someone who feels comfortable speaking publicly about this?

I'm comfortable speaking publicly. I mean, I'm a teacher so I'm pretty comfortable. That hard part, even in terms of writing the book, is how much do you divulge to the reader without giving away too much of yourself. At the same time, in order for the reader to care what the government did, they have to care about Pat. And they have to understand the tragedy and the gross horror of losing someone in such a violent manner and then find out that people who you trusted to comfort you after his death and to tell you the truth--that they lied to you--is a huge betrayal. I mean, the most comforting presence at Pat's memorial were the military people because we felt that they understand. General [Philip] Kensinger--we were so honored that he was there and it turns out that he knew that it was indeed a fratricide. So, you know, that's very painful. And it was of course excruciatingly painful for Kevin because this was his chain of command.

It seems the NFL has taken many opportunities to commemorate Pat, but they don't want to get behind you. Do you think they want to have it both ways?

I think they haven't gone out of their way to help; they've exploited Pat, just like the military. I do believe that. I mean, they have a beautiful statue to him at Cardinal Stadium. I don't know if that's more for us or him; I feel like it's more for them. It's sad for me to say that, but I think it's true. They haven't really helped to try to find out what happened to Pat.

They have tremendous power...

Oh, absolutely. But there has been no effort to find out. You know, and the fact that players who played with him wanted to wear his number--they wouldn't let them do that. It's a minor thing I suppose, but at the same time I think it's kind of telling. It's like, "Okay, we had the jersey dedication, we did this, let's move on." I think that speaks a lot.

If you could say something to the last two NFL commissioners Roger Goodell and Paul Tagliabue if they were here right now, what would that be?

Well, I would say to them that they exploited Pat no differently than the military. You know, this is a young man who was quite unique. He was trying to do the right thing and it would be the right thing to try and find out what happened to him.

What can people do who want to help?

I would like people to definitely contact their local representatives and say that they would like Congress to push to find out who was responsible for the cover-up of Pat's death. Who was responsible for trying to spin Jessica Lynch's story? Pat's death is a microcosm of this Administration in the last eight years; I feel it's very symbolic of that. And I think the fact that they took this one individual that had a face--it's one thing to take an anonymous soldier; they don't know who it is, and it's easy for them to turn their back on it. But Pat had a face, he had a voice, and they still used him like that. I think that's outrageous!

You know, soldiers enlist and they know going into this that they could be killed or wounded or damaged emotionally or mentally by their some of their experiences, but they don't expect the military or government under which they serve to lie to their family and disrespect their service.

The lie about Pat was not simply a lie to our family, it was definitely a lie to dupe the public; to deflect their attention away from the atrocities of Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, and of course they wanted people to disregard the president's sad approval ratings, and the casualties. It's really important for people to understand: this was done to deceive them.

[Dave Zirin is the author of "Welcome to the Terrordome:" (Haymarket). You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com. Comment on this article at www.edgeofsports.com]

May God Bless the Tillman family and their efforts to expose the lies and dereliction of duty committed by high-level members of the military and the Administration. I implore all of you to do as she asks and take an hour to write a letter to your Congressman.

Also, a full investigation into Colonel Ted Westhusing's tragic death must be done. Like Pat Tillman, his journal was never returned to his family. It is as relevant as Ranger Tillman's death if not more in that it directly leads to Generals Fil and Petraeus' negligence and dereliction of duty.~Luis