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Tillman case summary from Wonkette - pretty effective

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HeraldSquare212 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-31-07 03:09 PM
Original message
Tillman case summary from Wonkette - pretty effective


I thought this was a pretty effective summary of the Tillman case so I thought I'd share it. I can't seem to cut and paste any of the text, though - sorry.



http://wonkette.com/politics/dept%27-of-political-assassinations/who-ordered-the-execution-of-nflarmy-hero-pat-tillman-284472.php
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Bluzmann57 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-31-07 03:16 PM
Response to Original message
1. One item I don't understand
What the hell does Tillman and his family being atheists have to do with "not letting it go"? Seriously, I'd like to know. That was a pretty weird statement.
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CTyankee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-31-07 03:25 PM
Response to Reply #1
5. My guess is that Christians would turn the other cheek and forgive whereas those awful
atheists wouldn't do that. Isn't that charming?
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speedoo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-31-07 03:19 PM
Response to Original message
2. Can someone provide a link for some new (to me) info?
I knew this:

"He was shot three times in the forehead at close range with an American M-16."

But I did NOT know this:

"This was after he was shot in the chest, legs and hand."

If that is not assassination, I don't know what is.
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Bushwick Bill Donating Member (605 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-31-07 03:24 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. Stan Goff has reviewed everything and disagrees.
Stan,
Just wondering if this new information from the AP:
is part of what you already know.

I’m not at all interested in promoting any “conspiracy theories”, I’m just wondering if this new information moves Tillman’s cause of death due to “friendly fire” closer to a possibility of a deliberate fragging.

STAN: Not unless it occurred in front of at least eight people, all who had great respect for him, and who conspired to cover this up together. Two of the top gunshot specialists in forensic pathology in the nation agree with me that this was likely a squad automatic weapon (same caliber as an M-4). The army dummied up the distances, then drew them down to 85 meters to support a “fog of war” thesis (as opposed to the actual serial violations of the ROE that did occur… more likely at around 40 meters. The three shots that killed Pat were actually two tight, and one flyer, all head shots and each instantly fatal on its own account. Now think in slow motion. Let me begin with the terminal ballistics one never sees in films and on tv. Destruction of the connectionn between the brain stem and the rest of the body caused a body to fall… straight down. No, people do not fly through the air like the stunt-people in Hollywood. Straight down. This happens instantly. The new theory proposed by some so-called expert, says that this tight shot-group (less than 4 inches) could only have been fired by someone shooting on semi-automatic (one shot at a time, even if in rapid succession). A fully-automatic weapon, like the Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) that is presumed (by me and two of the top forensics experts in the country) to be the lethal weapon, according to this theory, cannot fire this shot group because automatic weapons can not be controlled for this tight a shot-group. This premise is the basis of the presumed distance (10 meters) and mode of fire (semi-auto)/weapon (M-4) in the ne AP-propogated theory. Two problems: (1) the theory about auto fire is wrong, and (2) Pat was shot in the face three times, while facing downhill, and standing on a steep incline dropping to his front. (2) first. For this to have been an M-4 fiing on semi, the shooter would have had to fire, reaquire, fire, reaquire, and fire again, before Pat fell to the ground (straight down, on a steep forward inclining piece of terrain, with a large stone in front of him to prevent him tumbling down the hill). Even a very good rapid-fire shooter could not have place all three shots together quickly enough to fire the second and third shots before Pat fell away from the sight alignment. The only 5.56 mm weapon that could have placed those shots that quickly in the same place was the SAW… cyclic rate of auto-fire: 850 rounds per minute (14 rounds per second, ergo, three rounds in 2/10 of a second). Physics and pysiology matter; now add on the statistical probability that a bunch of enlisted people wopuld willingly participate as accessories after the fact in a cold-blooded murder (that just happened to coincide with an unplanned (but ineffectual) ambush)… and we begin to appreciate how unlikely this scenario is. Now for number (1). I’ll happily go to the range with anyone who cares to set it up today (which can be arranged with anyone who has been trained with the SAW), and demosntrate that these tight groups very well can be fired from a Saw, when they are part of a con tinuous firing cycle that allows the gunner to first walk the fire onto a target, then tighten down on the weapon as he orients on the impact signature (The rock in front of Pat was covered with bullet strikes.). There are family members who will not easily dismiss this because they are not experts on these things, and because the government has lied and covered up again and again and again on this case. I don’t fault them; and in fact I have great affection for them. The depth of their sense of betrayal would make anyone think the worst, and want someone to prove otherwise. More than this, I am not willing to say because I am still under a confidentiality agreement. Let me say this, though. If this case becomes about a conspiracy to murder, the focus is taken off the likely suspects for the real cover-up and crime, and the ones who all these sacrifices of Geneals have been designed to protect… Donald Rumsfeld, Lawrence DeRita, and probably George W. Bush. They are all loving this right now.


STAN: The big news is that Rumsfeld will invoke executive privilege to avoid testifying about when he learned about the fratricide. On the conspiracy, I respect Dr. Zimbardo immensely, and the Stanford Experiment remains extremely relevant; but I have reviewed thousands of pages of testimony on the incident, and know the family quite well. Infantry platoons don’t commit political assassinations, and Pat’s killing was not planned by anyone. This is my absolute and categorical opinion. I have written a series about Pat’s death for the now-defunct From the Wilderness Publications, called “The Tillman Files,” and my basic prosecutorial hypotheses remain unchanged. I have since learned many more details and had names corrected from previously redacted documents; but long-story-short, no conspiracy. More than that I can’t say now, because I have signed a confidentiality aggreement that limits my discussion of this case.
http://stangoff.com/?p=522#comment-82779

Read Stan's series on the case here.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/index.shtml#tillman
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speedoo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-31-07 03:27 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. Does that answer my question?
Edited on Tue Jul-31-07 03:28 PM by speedoo
My question was about wounds other than to his forehead. I'm not interested in anything else right now.
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frogcycle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-31-07 04:39 PM
Response to Reply #4
8. i've read this three times now
and still can't sort out his point about the SAW (ok, by the time I wrote the following I had explained it to myself)

he says "A fully-automatic weapon, like the Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) that is presumed (by me and two of the top forensics experts in the country) to be the lethal weapon, according to this theory, cannot fire this shot group because automatic weapons can not be controlled for this tight a shot-group. "

but he goes on to make his case that it has to have been a SAW, since semi-automatic separate shots is not plausible by the physics.

OK, I get the latter point loud and clear. He seems to be saying that a SAW on full automatic cannot be held to such a tight pattern - that it will "walk" - which is also pretty understandable. I THINK what he is saying is that the shooter "walked" the shots across the rock, onto Tillmans head, and then probably off into the air, and that as the stream crossed his face three made contact; that were it not for the rock, there would have been a trail of impacts right up his torso. That would suggest he was crouched behind the rock with only head showing from eyes up.

The report says he was standing though. Maybe it was a big rock?!?

And where/when did the other body shots come from? Was he shot in body and still able to stand and attempt to id himself? Why in the hell, when you've already taken several rounds, do you stick your head up when the shooter is still hosing down your location?

Maybe he has acknowledged your ID and you think its safe? One possible scenario to me is that the body shots were indeed accidental but the shooter panicked that he was in deep doodoo for doing it, and thought he would eliminate the only witness (that presumes the rest of his squad were NOT right there, but around a corner or some damned thing); he figured he could kill Tillman and say he'd died heroically, but if left alive Tillman would get the guy in trouble... clearly not an honorable move, but hey, people DO panic. Or maybe even the guy with the SAW was covering for another guy who had fired the body shots. Maybe Tillman had responded by yelling "you are all toast, m-fers"

Goff is pretty persuasive that prior planning is far-fetched. It still smacks of lies and deceit as to what really happened on the scene, and stinks to high heaven for what has happened ever since, up to and including this minute.

And just maybe the whole frigging story is contrived - that one guy with a SAW stalked Tillman and executed him, then told the rest a yarn when they got there and they all decided to back him. All the reasons Goff has for saying it could not be prior planning go out the window if the story is a complete fabrication.

Oh what a tangled web...



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eridani Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-01-07 01:53 AM
Response to Reply #8
10. Goff makes perfectly good sense--
--but why the burned diary and uniform? If it happened like Goff has hypothesized here, it's a straightforward 'fog of war' screw-up that the military should have had no trouble admitting to.
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frogcycle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-01-07 11:09 AM
Response to Reply #10
12. only if people on the scene
panicked over the screwup and tried to cover it because of who Tillman was can some of those anomalies be explained

If that is the case, it is surprising someone has not yet done like the guy did with the Abu Ghraib pics - but then again, he continues to get death threats, can't go back to his home town... Wilson's wife was outed and both he and she continue to be pilloried... Libby was excused by the cabal and nobody else nailed...so maybe whoever in this instance might have a conscience is put off by the demonstrated fact that this country does not want nor stand behind people of conscience. And since they know that the people they would be ratting out are - well - highly talented...

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bananarepublican Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-01-07 05:51 AM
Response to Reply #8
11. Lee Harvey Oswald could have done it with a SAW! Just ask the Warren Commission. n/t
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KansDem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-31-07 03:20 PM
Response to Original message
3. "Honor" is a term I've always associated with the US military
But not anymore...

The military, at least the higher-ups, are the biggest liars and con-men I've ever had the displeasure to read or hear about.

They are not "honorable" men. Military "honor," like Bush's view of the Constitution, is a quaint relic...

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lazyriver Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-31-07 04:03 PM
Response to Reply #3
7. I have believed and still do believe we should be
looking at Blackwater mercenaries rather than actual U.S. military when it comes to the shooting but the U.S. military would still have to be involved in the cover up.
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frogcycle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jul-31-07 04:41 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. if it was premeditated I agree
whether Blackwater or some other obscure entity with no code of honor whatsoever
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mod mom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Aug-01-07 11:19 AM
Response to Original message
13. The Pentagon still has his diary that he kept with him in Afghanistan-WTF?
I thought it was destroyed.
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