The Truther Movement has a new poster boy - Pat Tillman
I don’t who shot Pat Tillman. I don’t know if it was an accident - the official story - or intentional. I do know, the conspiracy theorists are coming out of the wood work. And, of course, the HuffPo is leading the pack.
UPDATE - and the DailyKos too!
From Josh Swiller at HuffPo:
Of all the scandals and cover-ups perpetuated by Bush and the Neocon army, this could be the worst yet. It has recently come to light that Pat Tillman was killed by three bullets to the forehead. And not just three bullets to the forehead but at close range! That’s not friendly fire, that’s assassination.
Hmm, so Pres. Bush ordered a hit on Tillman, right? Read on…
Many facts back up the idea that Tillman’s death was a planned out execution. Consider:
• Tillman and his platoon were Special Forces. They had hours and hours of training that regular soldiers did not get. They were trained not to shoot wildly and indiscriminately. Friendly fire is generally wild and indiscriminate. It is not three bullets at close range.
A couple of things. First, although they are highly trained and fall under Special Operations Command, U.S. Army Rangers aren’t the Special Forces. The Special Forces are the Special Forces. Second, I haven’t seen a picture of the three bullet holes in question (nor do I wish to), but having fired automatic weapons in the past, I can assure you, it is very difficult to keep three bullets close together - even at close range. You really have to work at it, because of the severe muzzle rise on nearly all weapons - especially those firing in an automatic mode. Not likely something done while under the stress of an “assassination”.
• Tillman’s crew was sent, for the first and only time ever on an evening mission. What is the point of an evening mission besides massive chaos? Daylight, you can see what’s going on. Night, you can sneak up. Evening, you wander into the sheepherders coming home from the mountain pastures. Why exactly?
What the hell is this guy talking about? Evening missions happen all the time. Usually, because they end up being night missions.
• The team’s Humvee broke down on the way … and they were ordered to continue on foot. Again, what was the point? Doesn’t a broken down Humvee in the lone road in the valley kind of ruin the element of surprise?
And a HMMWV driving down the road has a greater element of surprise? Maybe, just maybe, they were ordered to continue on because they had a mission to complete.
• Tillman was, contrary to the Republican portrayal of him as a reflexive patriot, deeply troubled by the war. In fact, he was overheard speaking out about the Iraq invasion and telling another soldier to vote for Kerry. Tillman’s favorite author: none other than Norm Chomsky. A visit with Chomsky was set up for as soon as Tillman returned. It seem most likely he was planning to speak out loudly and publicly against the war when his tour was over.
OK, so what? Lots of soldiers feel the war in Iraq is bad. How many of them are “assassinated”?
• Tillman kept an extensive journal since he was 16 and guarded it with his life. Two days after his death, the journal, along with almost all of his other personal affects, disappeared.
Well, that could be several things. First, the guys who collected up his stuff could have inadvertently dumped it. More nefariously, it could have been hidden as part of the original friendly fire cover-up. This hardly proves he was murdered on the orders of higher-up’s.
• The fiasco of the cover-up around his killing continues to go higher and higher up the ladder … our president himself has blocked the release of information around the killing, claiming executive privilege.
All this evidence points to the unmistakable conclusion that Tillman was assassinated. If he had come out strongly against the war and Bush policy just a couple of months before the election, it would have been more than enough to tip it over to Kerry.
MAYBE it would have been enough to get Kerry elected, and that’s a very large maybe.
All this evidence does NOT prove Tillman was assassinated. Murdered, maybe. Fratricide, definitely. But to suggest that Pres. George Bush had SPC Pat Tillman, serving in Afghanistan, assassinated in order to avoid him speaking out against the war in Iraq in order to improve his chances at being re-elected is pretty much beyond the pale. All of this evidence is circumstantial, at best.
The Pat Tillman case is a sad example of something going very wrong during war time. It’s not the first case of fratricide, and it won’t be the last. For the Tillman family, they may never know what really happened. A cover-up did occur. But nothing Swiller says here is enough to prove murder, let alone an assassination conspiracy - at any level.
You folks in the Pat Tillman Truther Movement are going to have to do a lot better than this.
Category :
Tags :
Afghanistan, anti-war groups, army, Daily Kos, election, George W. Bush, Huffington Post, Iraq, liberals, Pat Tillman, Rangers 
Similar Posts:
- The cover-up began soon after Tillman’s death
- Soldiers ordered not to tell the truth about Tillman
- The Pat Tillman tragedy continues
- Army admits to "errors" in Tillman case
- Danger close
- ‘Diggers’ fight the Taliban in Afghanistan
- U.S. fighter inadvertantly bombs Britons
- Gun ownership - a life-long hobby and sport
- Pursuing Al Qaeda
- Video: American Special Forces gives jihadis the beat down
Speculation and conspiracy theories are believed by the uneducated and idiotic. While Pat Tillman’s death was tragic, it was not the first, nor the last tragic death. He was no more important than anyone else fighting for their country.
what are the odds this story here is factual?
This is an AP story after all…
Tillman Comrade Recalls Final Moments