WHo Ordered the Execution of NFL/Army Hero Pat Tillman? / Wonkette

[Demeter]

http://wonkette.com/politics/dept%27-of-political-assassinations/who-ordered-the-execution-of-nflarmy-hero-pat-tillman-284472.php

SUMMARY OF THE FACTS--SHORT AND CLEAR (AND I CAN'T CUT AND PASTE IT, SORRY)

[Buzz Clik]

1. A murder doesn't have to be ordered.

[Demeter]

2. But a Coverup of This Magnitude Suggests It Was

If this was just a fragging, there would have been due process.

[Buzz Clik]

3. Okay, then ... why? Why order the murder of someone with such a high profile?

If his murder was the result of an order, it was ordered by someone who is very, very stupid.

[Solo_in_MD]

5. Very good question...I'm seeing claims and statements, not a lot of facts

[Demeter]

6. I'm Thinking Cheney

I think his brain is fried even more than Bush's. Between his drinking, his clogged arteries, and his nasty temper to begin with, he probably got ticked off, found some dufus to do the deed, and then Karl-to-the-rescue-Rove started covering it up. Only Karl overdid it to the extent that nobody could believe it at all, nor turn a blind eye...


After all, look what his little fit of temper against Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame led to?

[Buzz Clik]

7. Yeah. Probably. I'm guessing he knocked down the bridge in Minneapolis, too.

[reprobate]

8. Stupid? I don't think so. Just arrogant as hell.

Remember that Tillman had told the media that Bush was hurting the war on terra by pulling troops out of Afghanistan to send to Iraq.

And we all know how this bunch of criminals treat anyone who threatens them. Just ask Joe Wilson and Valerie Wilson, and probably Paul Wellstone.

What better way to cover up what he told the media that by ordering his death and turning him into a media hero.

[3waygeek]

9. That doesn't narrow it down very much...

lots of potential suspects in this administration.

[camero]

11. The why is very easy.

Do it because the person is high profile then when you claim it as enemy fire, it's a PR effect.

[0007]

13. You got that one right!



[Prophet 451]

15. Seigfreid Sassoon

Sassoon went off to WWI and came back an embittered critic of it.

Tillman went off to war, was almost made into a poster boy for the war and seems to have become an embittered critic of it. If the poster boy for the war comes back and speaks out against it, think of the PR damage, the embarressment.

NOTE: I'm not saying Tillman's death was ordered by the admin, just offering a rationale for why it's possible, I don't know enough about the case to point fingers. Still, the cover-up does suggest something fishy is going on.

[Mist]

4. Generally, murder is premeditated, which implies planning, which implies an order. nt

[zazen]

10. assassination theories are playing into their hands

I've been lurking on DU for two years and I've finally got to jump in. I'm not able to start my own thread, but maybe someone will cross-post this for me. My personal theory is that R*ve is setting up the assassination theorists and the Dem investigators to be "Rather-ed." Why do you think they're letting Rumsfeld and the other aides suddenly testify? Get 60 million Americans--sports fans--who didn't previously pay much attention to the criminality of the B*sh administration suddenly thinking you've committed this heinous act, and then prove you're innocent. Then those 60 million Americans will be more likely to continue to ignore mass murder in an imperialist energy war, the profiteering of Halliburton, or Plame, Edmonds, Katrina, ad infinitum . . It didn't matter that Rather was right about B*sh going AWOL. It mattered that the public thought the claims were discredited.

I think Stan Goff's brief comments on this (I think more will be forthcoming this weekend) are useful to post here. Since he's been an Army Ranger and has been working on this case for two years, I think his observations are also useful to help put a brake on this.

comments from Feral Scholar, http://stangoff.com/?p=527#comments, from a discussion thread . . .

"STAN: The army doctors woulld have a point IF (1) the M-4 3-round shot group corresponds to your hypothesis, and (2) there weren’t multiple witnesses to the contrary. In fact, the reason the SAW can fire these groups on full auto and the M-4 cannot is related to the size, stability, and method of fire. An M-4 is a souped up CAR-15, which is a cut-down AR-15/M-16. Very short, very light. The M-249 SAW is a bipod or pintle mounted machinegun — heavier and longer, with a better buffer system. When “free-gunning,” the shooter generally fires low and “walks” the impact signature into the target. The large stone in front of Pat was shot up, then Pat took bullet hits to his body armor (his legs were partly covered by the rock), then the head. As the gunner “walks the fire in,” he also begins to “feel” the gun, that is, stabilize and concentrate the fires by tightening up on the gun. These fires come in ever-more-concentrated bursts of 6, 9, 12, et al rounds. The M-4, on the other hand, has a 3-round-burst, which ends arbitrarily at three rounds, and which cannot be controlled like the heavier, longer gun. No one who was in the Platoon, including Pat’s brother, has ever suggested that Pat was intentionally targeted because he was Pat. This attention to minutiae is very unfortunate; because it is a huge red herring. Read O’Neal’s statement to Congress. Pat died within a foot of O’Neal… who was crazy about Pat, and is still very close to the family. People watch waaay too many movies."

[Joanne98]

12. Here's the facts....

He was shot three times in the forehead at close range with an American M-16.
This was after he was shot in the chest, legs and hand.
And this was after he screamed to the “friendlies” that he was Pat Tillman and please stop shooting him.
But they didn’t; they executed him.
They were Americans.
There wasn’t even an “enemy” around; not only was nobody shot by “enemy fire,” no equipment was shot by “enemy fire.”
“Members of Tillman’s unit burned his body armor and uniform in an apparent attempt to hide the fact that he was killed by friendly fire.”
Army medical examiners tried to get a criminal investigation opened, but they were shut down.
The Army brass who conspired to shut down any criminal investigation into the U.S. assassination of Pat Tillman sent “congratulatory e-mails” to each other after shutting down the snoops.
The Pentagon heavily promoted Tillman’s enlistment and service as both a recruitment tool and a domestic propaganda tool.
The Pentagon maintained for long after his murder that Tillman died in combat, finally admitting to his family that “friendly fire” killed him — which wasn’t exactly true, either.
Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, who commanded Tillman’s base in Afghanistan at the time of his assassination, dismissed Tillman’s family’s attempts to find out what happened. Why? Because Pat Tillman was an atheist, like his family, so they were having “a hard time letting it go.”
In his writings — Tillman wrote constantly in letters and diaries and e-mails — the NFL star who became an Army Ranger after 9/11 had concluded the Afghanistan War was fake and the Iraq War was a criminal setup.
The Pentagon still has his diary that he kept with him in Afghanistan, where he was killed, and they won’t release it to his family.
Tillman had even arranged a meeting with anti-war icon Noam Chomsky about how to go public with a veterans-against-the-war movement.
Such a movement would’ve had an interesting effect on the Iraq Occupation and the then-upcoming 2004 election; Tillman had already been encouraging his fellow soldiers to vote against Bush.
Just today, Donald Rumsfeld refused to testify on the subject of Tillman’s assassination before Congress on Wednesday.
White House Counsel Fred Fielding has, of course, already “refused to issue certain documents to the committee because of executive privilege.”
What is the White House doing with “certain documents” about Pat Tillman’s murder?
Says Pat Tillman Sr.: “The administration clearly was using this case for its own political reasons. This cover-up started within minutes of Pat’s death, and it started at high levels. This is not something that people in the field do.”

[0007]

14. I often think about the Army Rangers and their obedience to warfare

How many Rangers have been killed by friendly fire in the past. These men are the best of the best.

The Army should know exactly who killed Pat Tillman and why. They also have the best equipment in communication and GPS's

[Demeter]

16. kick for new week

[eridani]

17. Stan Goff's latest take on the Tillman case

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/eridani/234