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Pat Tillman: Murdered for being a Liberal?

Why was Pat Tillman Murdered?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...illman_asu.jpg http://www.rbnlive.com/images/pat-tillman.gif

On one hand -the American Right wing is always joking about murdering people that disagree with them. (Examples here.) Presently we have a right wing government that has no respect for the rule of law. (Examples too numerous to cite) In the past -the American right wing has used the Presidential office to spy on their political opponents (watergate).

On the other hand we have a professional football player who quits a 500K job to serve his country. He stands politically against the right wing. He seems to be the makings of the next John Kennedy and could be a political liability.

Oh what the heck. He's a liberal. Just shoot him already.

Quote:

Army Withheld Details About Tillman's Death
Investigator Quickly Learned 'Friendly Fire' Killed Athlete

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 4, 2005; Page A03

The first Army investigator who looked into the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan last year found within days that he was killed by his fellow Rangers in an act of "gross negligence," but Army officials decided not to inform Tillman's family or the public until weeks after a nationally televised memorial service.

A new Army report on the death shows that top Army officials, including the theater commander, Gen. John P. Abizaid, were told that Tillman's death was fratricide days before the service

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...050301502.html

This was an unfortunate incident....though the accusations of a "Right Wing Conspiracy", to me at least, are far fetched. Having never been in War, I am hard pressed to judge a friendly fire incident one way or another but I would Err on the side of accident in this case.

"Jones reported that "some soldiers lost situational awareness to the point they had no idea where they were."

Pat Tillman was not a liberal. Every description I've heard of him puts him decidedly in the right of the political spectrum.

This was more of an army SNAFU than anything else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poppinjay

Pat Tillman was not a liberal. Every description I've heard of him puts him decidedly in the right of the political spectrum.

Quote:

“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”

Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to be identified, said Pat urged him to vote for Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGD7ETMNM1.DTL

This is a man who was mentioned (posthumously) by Bush in his presidential speeches and sent a letter by Donald Rumsfeld when he enlisted. The fact was that if Pat Tillman went public with his views -then Bush would have egg on his face. The solution is simple. Simply have him killed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tecoyah

I am hard pressed to judge a friendly fire incident one way or another but I would Err on the side of accident in this case.

You are citing Jones but further down:

Quote:

The investigator said he felt the chain of command allowed the soldiers to change their stories to protect individuals.

So we don't really know jack from Jones.

I didn't realize that he was against the Iraq portion of this odd war. And his journal was "lost" immediately after his death. Hmmmm.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Astrocloud

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NGD7ETMNM1.DTL

“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”

Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to be identified, said Pat urged him to vote for Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry.

But wait--you missed this part (why am I not surprised?)

Quote:

Baer said Tillman was popular among his fellow soldiers and had no enemies. “The guys who killed Pat were his biggest fans,” he said. “They were really wrecked afterward.” He called Tillman “this amazing positive force who really brought our whole platoon together.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv

But wait--you missed this part (why am I not surprised?)

And you missed these parts:

Quote:

Patrick Tillman Sr., a San Jose lawyer, said he is furious about what he found in the volumes of witness statements and investigative documents the Army has given to the family. He decried what he calls a "botched homicide investigation" and blames high-ranking Army officers for presenting "outright lies" to the family and to the public.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...200865_pf.html

(...content self edited by Astrocloud for being a little snippity)

OK....There is no reason to allow this thread to get out of hand, NO FREAKIN' REASON....if civil conversation cannot be had....there will be No Conversation At All

I dont really feel like saying much but I will say this: I was stationed in Baghdad for the last year. A lot of guys carried notebooks, journals and papers on their person. If something happened to them, not only were their clothes/armor a biohazard, it wasnt the best of ideas to store that clothing. I dont think I need to elaborate why.

And if something happened, somehow things could easily come around on you and even though it may have been an accident, in the Army, there is ALWAYS someone who is found at fault. People arent going to say everything or are going to be very careful about what they say because if you saw your friend die, that's bad enough. But if you somehow, in the big picture may have had a hand in it, by even because you didnt mention something to him/her, why would you want the guilt, plus a court martial to add?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,164815,00.html

There are plenty of stories in addition to this. If they were killed in the line of duty, is it automatically a conspiracy?

Forgive me if I was in any way confusing. (I've had a bit of wine :) )

Quote:

Originally Posted by nefarious

There are plenty of stories in addition to this. If they were killed in the line of duty, is it automatically a conspiracy?

In this government, that is not open to independant observation -that abuses power in every possible way -yes it is most likely a conspiracy. The day that they start becoming more open is the day that the need to ask questions like this is nullified.

Besides the fact that the Chicken Hawks in the Bush administration would want everyone to believe that everyone who picks up a gun is a NeoCon... this was a guy that was lauded by the Bush administration and set up to be their poster boy. The poster boy that really couldn't stand Bush or his cronies in any way.

Quote:

Who killed Pat Tillman?
He took three bullets in his forehead.

That´s how NFL football legend and patriot soldier Pat Tillman died.

Three bullets to his brain.

A soldier eyewitness said he followed "a river of blood" gushing from Tillman´s body and "saw his head was gone."

That´s how NFL football legend and patriot soldier Pat Tillman died.

But was Tillman murdered?

Conservative commentator James Buchanan says it´s likely. And he says the Neocons did it.

And believe it or not, the U.S. military´s now looking into it.

Whoooaaah, Nellie, as we say to our runaway horses here in the west.

That´s heavy stuff! But Buchanan´s arguments go far to explain how three American bullets ended up in Tillman´s forehead before they disintegrated it, and who might have put them there.

Citing the San Francisco Chronicle´s September 2005 investigation, Buchanan concludes that Tillman took three bullets to his brain fired by a U.S. shooter who clearly knew who Tillman was because Tillman, after radioing for a cease-fire, repeatedly shouted, "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat f…ing Tillman, dammit!." Buchanan asserts that Neocons ordered Tillman assassinated because the uber jock was also an uber intellectual who´d supported Bush´s war in Afghanistan by enlisting to fight al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, but protested when Bush moved his war to Iraq.

Posted to Iraq with his brother, Tillman openly voiced his contempt for the Bush administration, declaring the Iraq War was "so f …ing illegal," and he reportedly urged fellow soldiers to vote for Bush foe John Kerry in the 2004 presidential elections. And according to Tillman´s family, Tillman´s remarks weren´t just idle chatter.

Tillman had the best of both brawn and brains. He was a college graduate who subscribed to The Economist magazine, who´d kept a daily journal since high school, who passionately studied World War II history and the works of writers as diverse as Winston Churchill and radical anti-Iraq War scholar Noam Chomsky, and even had an appointment to meet with Chomsky when he returned stateside.

Three bullets in the forehead later, and Tillman wasn´t talking anti-Bush trash-talk to soldiers, declaring the Iraq War illegal, promoting Kerry for president, or meeting with Chomsky every again.

Buchanan asserts that the close range of Tillman´s fatal wounds implies that the shooter "had a good look at him." While the lantern-jawed Tillman was clean-shaven and helmeted, "Afghan rebels typically have beards and turbans." Tillman´s killer "could have been laying [sic] in wait for Tillman´s unit to pass by or may even have been a corrupted member of Tillman´s unit," Buchanan speculates.

Whoooaaah Nellie!

While not going so far as Buchanan, the San Francisco Chronicle averred: "Tillman´s death came at a sensitive time for the Bush administration—just a week before the Army´s abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq became public and sparked a huge scandal." The Pentagon, President Bush, and conservative commentators proclaimed him a hero who´d died in enemy combat. Ann Coulter proclaimed him "virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be." His memorial service "drew 3,500 people and was nationally televised," the Chronicle added.

But some say the military and the White House knew all along that it was a lie—that Tillman had taken three American bullets in his forehead, all the while screaming out his own name. And if Buchanan is right, the shooter was close enough to his target to hear, and kept shooting at his target anyway.

And his target was Tillman.

Evidence that might have normally been collected in the course of an investigation vanished. The military burned Tillman´s bullet-riddled body armor, blood-soaked uniform, and Kevlar vest, and his battlefield journal disappeared. They awarded Tillman a Silver Star—America´s third-highest medal for heroic combat--and told quite a dramatic story about how Tillman had barked out commands under enemy fire.

But Tillman´s parents weren´t buying it. And neither were those closest to Tillman, who unlike the breathless Ann Coulter, knew that the icon of American masculinity was, well, openly bashing Bush, openly declaring the Iraq War "illegal," and openly reading Chomsky.

Tillman´s parents demanded a full investigation, and insisted that "all avenues" of motive and action remain open. The military begrudgingly agreed. The Chronicle reports that the first military investigator concluded that some soldiers could be charged with "criminal intent," and others with "gross negligence." With no little understatement, the Chronicle explained that the difference between terms "is roughly similar to the distinction between murder and involuntary manslaughter."

Is the Chronicle saying that the military is saying that some soldiers in Tillman´s unit murdered him, and others just mistakenly fired along?

The next question is, did the American soldiers who murdered Tillman act on their own, or were they recruited to kill?

Whoooaaah Nellie! That´s a runaway horse for sure.

http://www.bayoubuzz.com/articles.aspx?aid=6452

Maybe he was killed because he played for the Arizona Cardinals.

i try very hard to stay away from this crap in "politics," but, where is the freakin' argument?

Its the paranoia forum Phil....there is rarely an argument to be had. But, it sure is fun to watch.

To reach the level of Ranger tkaes a great deal of personal commitment. From what i have heard and read of Tillman, he chose to forgo a career in professional sports and multi-millions and chose to serve his country. Yes, there are those who don't agree with te government while serving, thats what makes the U.S. a great country, we have the choice.

When in extreme stress and combat situations, bad things happen. Shit happens. For this to be an intentional act... I think thats a stretch. What happened after the fact, yes, there are a lot of questions. I think his superiors knew all too well who he was and that people wanted him to be a hero, no matter what. They probably took what steps they needed to make that happen. Bad choices? Probably. Doesn't sound like it will take much for the truth to come out.

I am sorry to even be posting here as I usually try to shy away from such a debate, but after reading one of these articles above I have to.

Quote:

Tillman had the best of both brawn and brains. He was a college graduate who subscribed to The Economist magazine, who´d kept a daily journal since high school, who passionately studied World War II history and the works of writers as diverse as Winston Churchill and radical anti-Iraq War scholar Noam Chomsky, and even had an appointment to meet with Chomsky when he returned stateside.

So he had "brains" or was a "smart" individual just because he subscribed to a certain magazine and kep a journal? Well hell, half of the known world should be considered Einstein and given the Nobel Prize or something for all the magazines and journals we read.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MontanaXVI

I am sorry to even be posting here as I usually try to shy away from such a debate, but after reading one of these articles above I have to.

So he had "brains" or was a "smart" individual just because he subscribed to a certain magazine and kep a journal? Well hell, half of the known world should be considered Einstein and given the Nobel Prize or something for all the magazines and journals we read.

To the Washington Post, yes.

Plus I'd call any of their claims suspect to begin with. Dead men tell no tales after all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MontanaXVI

The Economist is pretty heavy reading. Plus, you left out his studies of history and interest in Chomsky.

I know that no one wants to hear this from me on this but here is the latest:

Quote:

Tillman's death mishandled, Pentagon says
Army officials misled the public after the football star died in a 'friendly fire' incident in Afghanistan, a report concludes.
By Julian E. Barnes, Times Staff Writer
March 24, 2007

WASHINGTON — A new Pentagon report found that nine officers, including a three-star general, mishandled the investigation into the "friendly fire" death in Afghanistan of Pat Tillman, the pro-football player turned Army Ranger, a senior defense official said Friday night...
...
The report found that officials made misleading public statements about Tillman's death, the official said.

When announcing it, Army spokesmen said he was killed by enemy fire. A month later, they said he was killed by friendly fire, triggered by an enemy ambush.

But Afghan fighters in the area have cast doubt on that story as well, and no bodies of enemy combatants were found.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...adlines-nation

This will probably be automerged but it seems that Astrocloud predicted this WAY before anyone else did. Tillman's mother doesn't rule out murder.

Quote:

Yet, at the memorial service for her son in May 2004, the military said Pat Tillman had been killed by enemy fire, she said.

"That was not a misstep, that was not an error," she said. "This was an attempt to dupe the public and to promote this war and to get recruitments up, and that is immoral."

...

Shot intentionally?
Mary Tillman said she was not excluding the possibility that her son was shot intentionally.

"Pat was used," she said. "Once he was killed, I think they saw this as an opportunity." She noted that April 2004 was the worst month up to that time in the year-old Iraq war, and the shooting occurred right after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.

The latest investigation "only presented the points of view of the soldiers in the vehicle" who fatally shot her son and an Afghan soldier and wounded two others, she said.

"They never brought into play what the other witnesses said," Mary Tillman said.

She described as "shocking" the military's claim that no rules of engagement were broken.

The platoon members "fired at soldiers who weren't firing at them in areas where hands were waving and at a building," she said. "All of those things are breaking rules of engagement."

The soldier believed to have shot her son three times in the head was asked whether he had made a positive identification of the target before firing, she said. "This soldier said, 'No, I wanted to be in a firefight,' " she said. "That was a definite breaking of the rules of engagement."

She said the military is still spinning the story for its own gain.

"The first investigative officer, in his statement to the third investigative officer, said in his opinion, there was evidence of criminal intent, and he also used the term 'criminal negligence,' " Tillman said.
...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/27/tillman.mother/

So I'm curious. If the military isn't telling the facts. And the mother doesn't have the facts. The media doesn't have the facts. How can anyone draw a legitimate conclusion ? Military personnel die every day, whether it by classified "enemy" rounds, "insurgent" rounds or by "friendly-fire" accidents. Nothing can be said about what happened that day, though taking the plight of the mother and assuming that there's some sort of conspiracy is the easy route. What proof does "anyone" have ? Really.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mephex

Note: this is Tilted Paranoia. No proof necessary, only opinions. If you want proof, head over to Tilted Politics, although I'll warn you that it's not much fun over there.

The proof is that it is simply "Too Convenient" that Tillman got fragged. Tillman publically snubbed the Bush Administration after being lauded by such idiots as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Oh, and then there was the cover up.

http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/....JanFeb06.html

Quote:

This image of a Chomsky-loving, anti-Bush, anti-Iraq-war hero (at a time when most of the U.S. population supported the administration's foreign policy), flew in the face of the official Bush administration portrait of Tillman, painted by dutiful media whores like Ann Coulter, who once described him in near-racialist terms as "An American original-virtuous, pure and masculine, like only an American can be." (Max Blumenthal, blogging for the online Huffington Post, asked if we could have Coulter's line in the original German).

As both wars droned on, Tillman, the picture perfect poster boy, evolved into something of a wild card. With a Chomsky meeting on the horizon there existed a very real possibility that Tillman, in the weeks leading up to the 2004 presidential election, might go public with his anti-war, anti-Bush views, dealing a critical blow to the very foundation of the Bush administration's propaganda pyramid. That day never came, however. On April 22, 2004, Tillman was killed while on patrol in Afghanistan by three American bullets to the head.

The Pat Tillman Story

Sorry to bum everyone out. Looks like I was talking about something that will take years to go away.

I never knew this. I wonder how I missed it.

I have a very hard time thinking that it would ever be ordered by people at the top, but I wouldn't put it past them. But having worked with these types of people, and being friends with them, I wouldn't put it past a group of them to pull off an accident to kill the person who has an view different than their own. It is one reason why I'm afraid of what would happen if the "don't ask, don't tell" thing is changed.