Was Pat Tillman eliminated to silence a powerful anti-war voice?
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.
10 yards away? How do you fuck up so badly that you manage to put 3 bullets — in a tight grouping — in the head of a fellow Ranger? It doesn’t seem very likely, especially when there was zero evidence of enemy fire. That means that they were not in the fog of war and the confusion that follows from it.
It’s also worth noting that the Tillman story has changed several times. First, he was killed by enemy fire. Then he was killed by friendly-fire. Now it seems the “friendly” might have been aiming right at him.
Who would want Tillman dead, and why? Prison Planet has some theories:
The evidence points directly to it and the motivation is clear – Tillman abandoned a lucrative career in pro-football immediately after 9/11 because he felt a rampaging patriotic urge to defend his country, and became a poster child for the war on terror as a result. But when he discovered that the invasion of Iraq was based on a mountain of lies and deceit and had nothing to do with defending America, he became infuriated and was ready to return home to become an anti-war hero.As far back as March 2003, immediately after the invasion, Tillman famously told his comrade Spc. Russell Baer, “You know, this war is so fucking illegal,” and urged his entire platoon to vote against Bush in the 2004 election. Far from the gung-ho gruff stereotype attributed to him, Tillman was actually a fiercely intellectual man with the courage of his convictions firmly in place.
Tillman had even begun to arrange meetings with anti-war icons like Noam Chomsky upon his return to America before his death cut short any aspirations of becoming a focal point for anti-war sentiment.
This is the last thing the Bush/Cheney administration needed. Could they have possibly given the order to assassinate Tillman and then cover it up?
Former presidential candidate Wesley Clark said he thought the orders to whack Tillman must’ve come from the very top. Tillman could’ve become an anti-war voice much more resonant among men and conservatives than Cindy Sheehan. He represented a threat precisely because of his service, his life story and his fierce, questioning intelligence. The latest (and most pathetic) propaganda seems designed to paint Pat as an atheist to undermine America’s trust in him:
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 …”
If there was no enemy fire, why were they on the ground? How do we know this account wasn’t completely fabricated? I think Congress needs to talk to the doctors and investigators who attempted to pursue the homicide angle, but were stymied.
How come all of these anti-war people tend to die mysteriously?