“And Then My Belt Fell Down”

In a just-posted Movieline interview, Tillman Story director Amir Bar-Lev is asked how he feels about the pivotal, incriminating memo in the film, which was authored by General Stanley McChrystal, who currently commands our forces in Afghanistan. Bar-Lev answers as follows:

“Listen, it’s not a complicated answer. No one in the government has ever admitted that there was a cover-up, and to watch the contortions that these public figures go to in order to publicly flagellate themselves without admitting what’s pretty obvious to everybody — that they tried to cover up Pat Tillman‘s death — is absurd.

“General McChrystal is just one of several high-ranking figures who’s never been called to account for his role, and the story continues to this very moment. He gets up there at his swearing-in and basically says what has been said all along, which is, ‘I know what it looks like. I know that it looks like we deliberately covered it up, but believe us that it was this Rube Goldberg-esque chain of mistakes, blunders, and errors that look like a cover-up.’

“The only fucking idiots who buy that, the only fools who believe that, are the mainstream press. It’s just so clear to everyone else, and it’s the equivalent of saying, ‘Honey, I know that it looks like I’m f—ing your sister, but actually I dropped my wallet, and then my belt fell down, and she happened to be there.’ That’s what the military has done in the Pat Tillman case.”

• Tweet