AP: New Details on Tillman's Death (Homicide?)

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Washington Post

Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

"The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.

The doctors _ whose names were blacked out _ said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.

Ultimately, the Pentagon did conduct a criminal investigation, and asked Tillman's comrades whether he was disliked by his men and whether they had any reason to believe he was deliberately killed. The Pentagon eventually ruled that Tillman's death at the hands of his comrades was a friendly-fire accident.

----

In his last words moments before he was killed, Tillman snapped at a panicky comrade under fire to shut up and stop "sniveling."




Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/26/AR2007072602025.html

---

I've always speculated that he was fragged. If you caught Countdown tonight General Wesley Clark was disturbed by how close even the supposed shooting took place. Even at dusk General Clark thought that at 100 meters the shooters should've been able to identify or at least his figure and weapons as a U.S. soldier.

[Warpy]

1. Sounds like a gangland hit, doesn't it?

Close placed multiple GSW to the head, right?

Just what the hell did he uncover?

Just what the hell are they hiding?

[LisaL]

16. At least they hasn't tried to pass it off as suicide.

Three bullets into forhead, apparently from close distance? Sure sounds suspicious to me. How could it have been friendly fire? If it's from close distance, wouldn't whoever was shooting see who he was shooting?

[me b zola]

25. I'm sure Pat's family is consoled by that

:sarcasm:

Yes, it was an "intimate" range of fire. Why murder you ask? The answer was burned with Pat's uniform & journal.

[jgraz]

2. Of course he was fragged, probably on Rumsfeld's orders

A relatively minor crime, given BushCo's track record...

[1932]

21. ...to get a story to help the war effort. In WW2 you bought war bonds. Times have changed.

[yurbud]

24. it was right after abu ghraib broke

[Captain Hilts]

3. "His men." He'd barely been in the army two years. How'd he get in charge? nt

[RamboLiberal]

5. He was the golden boy

Tillman was definitely a can-do guy but you know he was probably also given special consideration even if he didn't want it by those who saw this guy as a propaganda tool. Ranger school, quick promotion, etc. And I've always thought that there would be those in the unit who were jealous. Also given he was speaking out against the Iraq war and their glorious leader Bush I bet the Freeper wingnuts in the unit despised him.

[PurityOfEssence]

36. He was also a non-believer and vocally against the Iraq invasion

He joined to go after the Taliban, and was very displeased about being sent first to Iraq, as he was against the whole Iraq conquest in the first place.

I've often wondered whether his dislike of religion was what motivated him to want to go after the religious nuts who attacked us.

Nonetheless, this is a VERY interesting development.

[John Q. Citizen]

37. I bet his crew loved him. But someone didn't. I find the assumption

that soldiers are somehow ga ga over bush to be just that; an assumption.

Like how many people in Nam were ga ga over Johnson, or Nixon?

The wierdest thing about this story is the long term cover-up. First it was enemy fire, then it was friendly fire, and now it's intentional homicide, a fagging or a hit.

If it was a friendly fire incident, why cover it up? If it was a fragging, why would the investigators cover it up? Not for the propaganda value, certainly.

It sounds like a hit. Which someone would want to cover up.

[RamboLiberal]

39. Difference - Vietnam a portion of the soldiers were draftees

That colored the views. I was reading a book recently by an army interrogator who was a liberal in the early years in Iraq. He was put through a ton of crap from both his fellow soldiers and his superiors for his liberal beliefs. And many of them were very much backing Bush. At the time Tillman was in Iraq and Afghanistan I do think he was surrounded by a lot of Bushbot dittoheads in the military. Remember at that time the Repukes thought they owned the military vote.

[John Q. Citizen]

41. Giving someone shit and shooting them face to face over politics is quite a

bit different.

Fragging for a personal grudge would make a lot more sense than who you plan to vote for.

If he was fragged, my bet is the investigators would have charged the fragger, if they knew who it was.

This sounds like it was covered up quick and from high up, and there must be a reason they covered it up. There is a lot more to this story than has come out, but each new revelation makes no sense.

Maybe some of his fellow rangers were running heroin, or something. It sounds a lot more like an execution than a fragging.

[Aviation Pro]

4. Closer and closer to the truth.....

...the truth will be terrible to behold.

[RamboLiberal]

6. Now that I've had the chance to read the entire article

The whole damn story is unraveling! This damn well needs a new investigation!

The documents show that a doctor who autopsied Tillman's body was suspicious of the three gunshot wounds to the forehead. The doctor said he took the unusual step of calling the Army's Human Resources Command and was rebuffed. He then asked an official at the Army's Criminal Investigation Division if the CID would consider opening a criminal case.

"He said he talked to his higher headquarters and they had said no," the doctor testified.

[Kagemusha]

7. The admin's stopping it cold by claiming executive privilege, you know.

Which is low.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

8. Then the admin has something to hide

[cascadiance]

18. I was wondering if they were more worried about losing those doing the covering up...

Here's a post I made earlier today...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1441791&mesg_id=1441791

I'm just wondering if it isn't so much to cover up a murder. I would think it might be kind of hard for the initial incident being a murder that you could point a finger at Bush, Rumsfeld for etc. I don't think they gave the order that he be killed. I think there wasn't much they'd gain by doing that, and a LOT that they could lose.

On the other hand, the coverups are always what ding you! I wonder if they are more worried about the chain of command involved in fabricating the story afterward and the subsequent coverup, if this group of people consists of Bush's *control element* of the military...

If Bushco is really thinking of using Martial law later to stop elections or some other nasty event predicating their move to fascism, they'll need the military on their side for doing that. I would guess that there needs to be a number of key people in different places in the military for them to pull such an effort off and have complete control like they'd want. If they lose some of these people that were involved in the Tillman fabrication/coverup, these might be the same people that they would NEED to do their military coup takeover later.

Thus the executive privilege to protect their "key lieutenant"'s identities so that they can still be around at the hour they want them. Otherwise, to me, the executive privilege claim seems a bit heavy handed for what Bushco themselves would personally get out of it and vs. the greater risk of getting contempt and impeachment proceedings started.

[Usrename]

28. Social networks are what you are talking about.

Paul Wellstone, Pat Tillman, there are always the immovable objects that will resist things like unjust wars or martial law. Since they cannot be moved, they must be removed.

There has been a lot of brain power and dollars spent on the development of very sophisticated methods to identify, catalogue, and control people, and the method used seems to be centered around the ability to analyze their social networks. (think myspace, only bigger, and including everyone)

It's the key to controlling civilian populations. If the Nazis had this technology they might have won. As they kept occupying more and more territory, they had to leave more and more of their fighting force behind to manage the occupation.

Had they the technology and computing power to develop a more complete understanding of these social networks, they would not have had to do that. Just round up a few, and if they are the right few, with no mistakes, then it is years before any resistance can be organized.

At least that's how I understand it to work. And to me, that's what makes this junta so dangerous. They have the technology. And the day after, it's too late. Who are you going to complain to when all of the opposition leadership is gone? Who?

[cascadiance]

31. There's potentially two (maybe more) scenarios at work here...

The one scenario everyone speculates on here is if Tillman were "spotted" as a potential future threat that needed to be "silenced" so that he wouldn't be a bigger threat later alive and leading an internal revolt of soldiers to shut down the effort in Iraq, etc. and that orders were given from the top to take him out. I think this is a possibility that needs to be looked at as it is in fact a very grave scenario that would be impeachable if the details were found out and would account for executive privilege being used. But with this scenario we need to consider the following:

1) Pat Tillman was just a corporal at the time and the public really didn't know him to be an "anti-Bush" figure in any way. That is why the propaganda worked for a while. Therefore, such a plot of ordering his execution from up high seems to me a rather risky thing to undertake as they didn't really know how much of a threat he would be in the future. It would just be speculation. And if the plot to kill him were exposed, it seems like the costs to the administration of that happening would be far greater than his internal opposition to the war later within the military. That could always be staved off, just as internal opposition is from many other military leaders has been now, without "offing" these people.

2) If it weren't a top down order for Tillman's execution, and it was just a few underlings that were involved that they are trying to protect, it would seem like that wouldn't be worth it to them either to invoke executive privilege to protect them, etc. It seems like the costs again of trying to cover it up further than letting justice take its course wouldn't justify the coverup.

3) Even if this plot is found out in small degrees (but "unprovable" kind of like Valerie Plame incident), it is one more item on the list that is already large of reasons to do impeachment, but for which he and his cronies have already found ways of stopping in Washington with the "impeachment is off the table" meme.

The scenario I posed was something of a reverse "Seven Days in May" type of scenario, where you have some key leaders spread throughout the military trying to in effect take over the government with martial law, etc. in a coup. In "Seven Days in May", you had an honorable though perhaps somewhat inept president with some loyal lieutenants of his own (Kirk Douglas), trying to fend off a coup by a high ranking general (Burt Lancaster). Lancaster had many well planted people in different parts of the military that he needed in place to pull this off. If a substantial segment of them were removed, his plot would get stopped in its tracks.

I think with this scenario it might be the same thing. Bush has many key people in places in the military (and perhaps has some more control now with his drones in the Pentagon, etc. that were populated there by he and the administration according to former Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski). IF there is a plan for Bush to have the military in effect be a part of his plan to declare martial law and stop the 2008 election because of some terrorist event, he probably views the social network that HE controls as being essential to quelling dissent of any such takeover happening. If you remove any significant portion of that, the military would become a barrier, rather than an aid to such a plan.

Consider:

1) Executive privilege claims are more to cover up those that are involved rather than Bush himself. If investigations are launched and don't show he or Rumsfeld to have given an order to do this, they might be able to say "See? This is how your investigations don't turn up anything and interfere with our commanding the armies". If we don't pay attention enough to the chain of command of the subsequent coverup in this investigation, they will have won in distracting people from the true purpose of what they were trying to use executive privilege for. Much like some would argue that the Valerie Plame incident wasn't about trying to out Joe Wilson, but to shut down Brewster Jennings in finding out some more sinister parts of Bush's plans perhaps even to plant WMD's in Iraq, which they in effect have been very successful in covering up if this were the case.

2) The threat to Bush here isn't so much that it could add another reason for us to do impeachment on him, Cheney, etc., which I noted above has already been blocked with many other strategies going on to do that, but to stop us from shutting down his control over the Army.

3) If these "control elements" in the army are what they view as strategic, and we can force them out of the military forces with this investigation, we might have in effect shut down what they'd hoped to be their "escape clause" for all of the things that have been building up that Paul Craig Roberts talks about. If Bush and cronies realize that they cannot pull off a coup on the American people because his lieutenants needed for that are removed, then perhaps they will realize that the jig is up and cry uncle, knowing that sooner or later they will be caught and the justice system will come after him now or down the road. He and his cronies might then realize that any more attempts of seizing of power, etc. will just compound their situation more in terms of prison terms and harsher punishments and then be more interested in "cutting a deal". It might be a "backdoor" way to either get a set of resignations or impeachment to happen now.

[Usrename]

32. I dunno, there are so many possibilities.

If he was killed intentionally, in the simplest case it was by some nutjobs in his unit, for political reasons. There are also much more complicated scenarios, if it was done by the order of some higher ups, also for political reasons. They destroyed his diary, and that is why I think it was done for political reasons.

Who did burn his diary? They say it was the guys who burned his clothes. :shrug:

He was as outspoken as he could legally be about the criminality of the invasion in Iraq. That may have had something to do with him being sent to Afghanistan after an abbreviated tour in Baghdad. He also had a huge soapbox (by way of his fame and his hero status) that he could not use while he was in uniform. His diary would have been devastating in the propaganda war. His being alive would be even more powerful.

I’ll say this, considering the time-line of events (he was killed during the Abu Ghraib scandal), it is a lot more likely that there was a lot of local energy focused on ensuring guys like him were being kept quiet, and not a direct threat to the cabal. It was way too early to be considering his reaction to the present state of affairs.

I don’t disagree at all with the way you have the situation defined (anything that is a possible threat to them is the enemy, and that pretty much includes everyone that is not a loyal Bushie). It’s just more a matter of looking at this along a continuum where they are always pushing back against their opposition, with as much force and violence as is possible at the time. They are constantly watching and studying their opposition, and any type of xenophobia that they can exploit is their best friend.

Other than these rudimentary requirements, solely having to do with how to get everyone to conduct themselves in a semi-predictable manner, they don’t do a lot of planning or strategery. Witness Iraq or Katrina. That’s why there is some cognitive dissonance as they are viewed (alternately and at the same time) as evil geniuses or total numb nuts.

It’s cronyism or organized crime or fascism or even corporatism; whatever you want to call it; but it's mostly mindless power and greed. “As long as our guys are on our side, and we keep promoting them, it doesn’t matter if they know how to do anything.”

That’s their “master plan.”

[never cry wolf]

9. Wow, even his last moments, and words are under suspicion

The documents also shed new light on Tillman's last moments.

It has been widely reported by the AP and others that Spc. Bryan O'Neal, who was at Tillman's side as he was killed, told investigators that Tillman was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" again and again.

But the latest documents give a different account from a chaplain who debriefed the entire unit days after Tillman was killed.

The chaplain said that O'Neal told him he was hugging the ground at Tillman's side, "crying out to God, help us. And Tillman says to him, `Would you shut your (expletive) mouth? God's not going to help you; you need to do something for yourself, you sniveling ..."

[Bjorn Against]

10. And they just tried to use executive privilege to cover this up

It looks like Bush is covering up the cold-blooded murder of a person many view as a national hero, if this story grows any more this just may possibly be the final straw for a lot of people. Could impeachment be closer than we think?

[Tom Joad]

11. Maybe someone ordered a code-red? (def *not* fragging)

Can you imagine the damage this guy would have done, this poster boy for the military... if he had publicly refused orders to go to Iraq? qui bono

I would not call this "fragging" btw. that was a term used in Vietnam against officers who were too quick to send their underlings into stupid missions. So the underlings did what they felt they had to do to avoid needless death and injury.

If this were indeed a homicide, it looks like perhaps someone from higher up wanted to get rid of an independent thinker. The opposite of a fragging.

[Usrename]

29. I'm pretty sure the guy that shot him was under his command.

If it was intentional, he was fragged.

At this point, motive is more speculative, although it looks completely political.

[antiimperialist]

12. Tillman reportedly said, "this war is so f***** illegal"

source: Russell Baer, fellow soldier.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsfgate.com%2Fcgi-bin%2Farticle.cgi%3Ffile%3D%2Fc%2Fa%2F2005%2F09%2F25%2FMNGD7ETMNM1.DTL&ei=XnapRvLSNKPagQLOneiRBg&usg=AFQjCNHTjpPxHC0Tlb4ASb2e23fP7n4VDw&sig2=iYT5o5TuikXSzZuoGQzHAA

[nikto]

14. It would be logical to assume...

...that PAT TILLMAN was very intentionally taken out by some ultra-rightwing operative whose mission
was to silence Tillman, who had become an opponent of Bu$hCo's War Policy.

One highly conspicuous detail--Tillman's diary disappeared (it was verified
that he kept one)--Must be some real
explosive info in there, I would think (at least, before it was destroyed).

Chances are way better than 50-50 that he was murdered, IMO.

BEWARE--America's rightwing is capable of ANYTHING.

[Maraya1969]

13. Do those guns shoot fast enough that you could hit someone 3 times

before they fall down?

[rwenos]

15. 800 Rounds per Minute

And it fires bursts, but not full auto.

800 rounds per minute is, uh, 13.33 rounds per second.

More than fast enough to place a grouping of three on a standing man's forehead, before his knees even buckle.

Tillman was probably dead before he hit the ground.

[Adsos Letter]

17. ...somewhat OT, but...

...I haven't fired an M-16 since 1975...are they governed for 3-round bursts now? I know we were taught to fire in 3-round burst due reduce ammo wastage (and allow the weapon to return to target) but it depended on fire discipline...

serious question...

:)

[schrodinger_I]

19. Yes

The M-16A2 has the three round burst mode and is the standard rifle now.
The M-16A1 is full auto.
We had those went I went to Army Basic in the early 90's. You could "dump a magazine"
really fast!

[Adsos Letter]

20. Thanks!

Yeah; not only could you burn through the rounds but you were probably seriously off target after 3.

10 meters...that's @30 feet...is it possible to keep a forehead size pattern of 3 rounds at 30 feet, firing auto?

[Schema Thing]

30. Hell of a lot more possible than at 100 meters...

which is the official story for now.

And as General Clark pointed out on Olberman last night, even at 100 meters, he should have been recognized by his outline, weapons, uniform, etc.

[slampoet]

38. It had to be close though to get under the helmet. US Helmets are low over the forehead.

That's where the angles add up.

Tilman was tall over 6 foot i believe. So we are probably looking for a shorter person at close range to be able to shoot under the lip of the helmet.

Either that or the army doesn't want anyone to know their helmets don't work.

[jimlup]

22. Where is the smoking gun?

Unfortunately, I don't think it is enough to bring the administration down or even seriously hamper them. Yeah, it does sound like an inside job, but probably low level. The coverup probably just filtered upwards rather than downwards. Cover-up is how the administration naturally acts anyway so why shouldn't they cover up everything below them too.

[demgrrrll]

23. Pat Tillman's photograph came up on the Jumbo tron at the Ram's

game. It would be interesting to see some sort of montage of how they used his likeness and story to advance the war after his death. The Jumbo tron event was pure propaganda. I remember saying something to my husband as about what I thought about the event, the people above us heard my comments and gave us a real stink eye. That was years ago..seems like centuries...so much has happened since then.

[Pachamama]

26. My hunch was always that Tillman had to "die" because he was about to go from Poster Boy for Pro WAR

to becoming the outspoken Poster Boy for Anti-WAR on Iraq.

They couldn't afford that to happen. So killing him and covering up was a far better option, even if it meant getting caught, than if he had been allowed to live.

[annabanana]

27. Astounding.

This ought to blow that bogus "executive privilege" crap away pretty good.

[sarcasmo]

33. Kick for the truth, his Mother needs the truth.

[Doctor_J]

34. This illiegal occupation gets filthier every day

Where will * and Cheney receive their just penalties?

[Supersedeas]

35. When it came to waving the Flag and Tillman's picture at the behest of the Pentagon

the GOP/Corp Media establishment was all over it.

Now, this story will be buried deep under Lohan.

[Marie26]

40. Didn't Bush get notification of Tillman's death

before his family even did? Or did I just imagine that?