Truth About Tillman ... Murder's Not 'Friendly Fire' (by RJ Eskow at HuffPost)

[marmar]

from HuffPost:


RJ Eskow
Truth About Tillman ... Murder's Not 'Friendly Fire'
Posted August 2, 2007 | 05:43 PM (EST)



Once again, the Administration is pulling the old magician's trick of misdirection, this time in the Pat Tillman case. And once again, the press is falling for it. Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers focused on "what they knew and when" -- to borrow the Watergate phrase -- rather than the core issue at the heart of the Pat Tillman matter, which is this:

Pat Tillman was almost certainly murdered, and fratricide is not "friendly fire."

Yet a Google News search on the terms "Tillman" and "friendly fire" yielded 1,044 hits today, all from the last 24 hours. That's after the facts behind the fratricide are widely known - and after a number of clues that suggest the entire command structure, from the White House on down, concealed a murder from the public and took no steps to investigate it.

There's your story.

Friendly fire is commonly understood to mean the accidental death of a U. S. soldier through weapons fired by U.S. or allied troops. (See this definition.) The facts in the Tillman case make friendly fire highly unlikely. He died from three bullet holes grouped together in his forehead, fired from a M-16 that was no more than ten yards away.

Three bullet holes. In the forehead. From a M-16. That was ten yards away.

That's not "friendly fire." That's murder. (Unless Cpl. Tillman stood up in the path of another soldier's fire, took three hits precisely in the forehead, then fell before being hit again.)

As abhorrent as it was for the Administration to delay telling the family, the handling of the fratricide question was even worse. A killer's trail went cold. Now we may never know the truth. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/truth-about-tillman-m_b_58952.html

[davidwparker]

1. there's an awful lot of dead journalist, too. Like the "accidental" shooting

of the Italian journalist and her crew on her way back to Italy.

[shance]

3. Today editor of Oakland Post and homeless / minority advocate was murdered in Oakland

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) - The outspoken new editor of the Oakland Post was shot to death Thursday near a downtown courthouse in what police believe was a deliberate hit.

Chauncey Bailey, who had been a reporter for The Oakland Tribune before moving to the Post in June, was killed around 7:30 a.m., Oakland Police spokesman Roland Holmgren said. He said witnesses told police that a single gunman had shot Bailey and then fled.

Police had no motive for the killing but said it did not appear to be random. Holmgren said investigators would look into any possible connections with Bailey's work.

"I've spoken with him several times," Holmgren said. "I know him as being a somewhat outspoken type individual, assertive in his journalistic approach when trying to get at matters at hand."

Bailey grew up in Oakland and worked with several area media outlets, including KDIA radio and Soul Beat TV, a local cable channel. He wrote for the Tribune for more than 10 years before being named editor of the Post, a weekly community newspaper.

Oakland Tribune managing editor Martin G. Reynolds said Bailey was "a friend, a valued colleague and a loving father" whose coverage of Oakland's black community was "a tremendous asset."

At the Oakland Post, Gwendolyn Carter, the paper's advertising manager, said the staff of about 10 was shocked by Bailey's death.

"He was a good man," Carter said. "He always took care of me. He would say I was his little sister and he was my big brother."

Police and Crime Stoppers of Oakland offered up to $10,000 in reward money for information leading to the gunman's arrest.

[bullimiami]

2. the facts that instead of immediately revealing the real story but instead

creating a web of lies and apparently destroying evidence is enough to show that it was not an accident.

if it was truly an accident then there would have been no motive to misdirect and cover up and it has been done from afghanistan to washington dc.
it is obvious that anyone who participated in the coverup knew it was a lie.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

4. Let's not forget

the murder of a Washington state Assistant US Attorney back in 2001, STILL UNSOLVED:

On the night of October 11, 2001, at approximately 10:40 p.m., Thomas Crane Wales was killed in his home in Seattle, Washington. Wales worked for the Western District of Washington as an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) for over 18 years, prosecuting white collar crime cases on behalf of the United States of America. The shooter stood in the backyard of AUSA Wales' home and shot him several times through a basement window as he sat at his desk typing on his computer. It has been reported that a lone male suspect was seen fleeing the scene. Wales died at a hospital the next day.

Any US Attorney is going to develop some powerful enemies, but the few leads in this direction failed to pan out. Then, years later, US Attorney John McKay is one of the attorneys fired by BushCo. Why? McKay seems to think that it's because of his regular pressure on the Feds to find (or reveal) Wales' killer(s).

What connection to Tillman's murder? Both murders targeted potential FUTURE LEADERS of the opposition. Tillman was in the process of being groomed to be a poster boy for the Iraq War. Heck, Bush was going to have a photo opp with the guy! Suddenly, though, Tillman's true colors are revealed: he hates the war (and plans on speaking about it when his tour is done), his family is non-religious (that don't fly with a 'Promise Keeper' like W), and Tillman's been seen reading Noam Chomsky, perhaps one of the smartest people alive, and whose philosophies run counter to the corporatist fascism expounded by W and his ass clown Repug lap-slugs.

If we think about it even harder, we might even find other, similar "preemptive strikes". . .

[Fearless]

5. Interesting and frightening, yet not unheard of...

There have been scattered reports, particularly during WWII and Vietnam if, if my memory holds, that such things have happened before in the military where a soldier is shot on the basis of what they claim to be activites harmful to the unit etc. Of course, they were never well known people and the events were never publicized. It's hearsay, but so is our speculation. So, perhaps there is something to it all.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

6. There's a great article about this case in The New Yorker this week

An Unsolved Killing: What does the firing of a US attorney have to do with a murder case?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/06/070806fa_fact_toobin/

[Joanne98]

7. I think he was murdered by the Christians!

They've got a fifth column running in this country. Getting rid of the draft was a mistake!


http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheSwiftAdvanceOfaPlannedCoup.htm#anchor8123
<3> This latter point of an all-volunteer military may appear to be a surprising inclusion. However, it's worth looking at the dangers of an all-volunteer military. Dr. M. Scott Peck in his book The People of the Lie writes : “A draft--involuntary service--is the only thing that can keep our military sane. Without it the military will inevitably become not only specialized in its function but increasingly specialized in its pyschology. No fresh air will be let in. It will become inbred and reinforce its own values, and then, when it is once again let loose, it will run amok as it did in Vietnam. A draft is a painful thing. But so are insurance premiums; and involuntary service is the only way we have of ensuring the sanity of our military ‘left hand.’The point is that if we must have a military at all, it should hurt. As a people we should not toy with the means of mass destruction without being willing to personally bear the responsibility of wielding them. If we must kill, let us not select and train hired killers to do the dirty job for us and then forget that there's any blood involved. If we must kill, then let us honestly suffer the agony involved ourselves. Otherwise we will insulate ourselves from our own deeds, and as a whole people we will become like the individuals described in previous sections: evil. For evil arises in the refusal to acknowledge our own sins.” (At page 232)
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheSwiftAdvanceOfaPlannedCoup.htm#anchor8123

Did you notice the "Surrender at Churches" program getting run by the US Marshalls?
http://www.usmarshals.gov/safesurrender/news/071207.pdf

Setting up courts in Churches is NOT a good idea!

[No Coercion]

9. whoa

There's definitely some scary stuff going on these days in the Christian right, but we should never go back to a draft. That would be diametrically opposed to the very freedom we're fighting to get back from the Bush administration. Whatever the military's troubles, the draft was--and always will be--inhuman.

[madhoosier]

8. Given the pedestal upon which America places it's athletes

Given the pedestal upon which America places it's athletes can you imagine the impact of Tillman returning from the Middle East and denouncing the war?

In a tacky TV crime show that would be what the cigar chewing detective would call motive for murder. Given the litany of outright lies that the military chain of command has been caught in, the systemic corruption of the chain of command in the military would serve as opportunity for murder. And we know the means, an M-16, one of hundreds of thousands in Iraq.

There are plenty of people sitting in prison cells that were convicted on less evidence.

Oh, and the cover-up would be a classic case of consciousness of guilt.