Pat Tillman’s Death Looks More Like Murder
by James Buchanan
Pat Tillman gave up a 3.6 million dollar NFL contract to join the Army and fight al Qaeda. Tillman joined the elite Army Rangers and was fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan. He was then transferred to the Iraq War. Tillman, however, didn’t believe the Iraq War was justified. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that he called the Iraq War “illegal” and encouraged a friend to vote for John Kerry in 2004. Tillman was eventually able to transfer out of Iraq and return to Afghanistan, where he was killed under mysterious circumstances.
The military has slowly released the following information, which has been published piecemeal by the news media:
1).At first the military claimed Tillman died fighting the Taliban and earned a Silver Star in his last action. This story contained the most falsehoods and was exposed long ago.
2).There was a “friendly fire” incident. (It’s true that one ranger patrol fired on the other ranger patrol, but the shots that killed Tillman were fired from 10 meters or less, suggesting murder.)
3).Tillman’s diary disappeared.
4).Tillman’s bullet proof vest was destroyed by the Army after the incident.
5).Tillman had three bullet holes in his forehead in a two inch circle suggesting murder at close range. (An expert marksman firing at 200 meters would have a hard time putting three rounds into a two inch circle –firing one shot at a time. A three-round fully automatic burst from an M16 would have to be fired from 10 meters or less to be grouped that closely.)
6).Most recently, the military released information that Tillman scolded a fellow ranger during the battle.
A youtube video by Keith Olberman sums up much of the evidence above and asks the question: would there have been a motive by pro-war politicians to murder Pat Tillman to hush up his views against the Iraq War.
The most recent news article on the Tillman incident reports that medical examiners suspect Tillman was shot at a distance of 10 meters or less and that there was no evidence of enemy fire at the scene.
Initial reports of the battle claimed that there was mortar fire and sightings of armed insurgents a long distance away. At this point it’s not clear if any of that initial report was true or if it was all fabricated to cover up a trigger-happy shooting by some careless soldiers. One soldier admitted that the military made him change his story and lie about the Tillman incident. One Afghan scout was shot dead and two rangers were wounded by friendly fire (from a distance).
A recent news article notes that Tillman was chewing out a soldier just before he died –vaguely implying that the soldier might have killed Tillman, an event known as “fragging” from the Vietnam War when unpopular officers were killed by their troops often with fragmentation grenades. This thinly-veiled attempt to blame Tillman’s death on fragging seems like more misdirection and obfuscation by the US Military as they offer a convenient explanation for how Tillman could have been shot three times in the forehead at close range.
Let’s assume for a moment that the military’s story about Tillman being killed by friendly fire or even being “fragged” by one of his own troops is true. This would explain a great many details of the Tillman case including the deliberate destruction of his bullet proof vest, but it would NOT explain the disappearance of Pat Tillman’s diary.
Whenever a soldier is killed in war, his diary is sent home to his parents or widow. In Pat Tillman’s case, his diary disappeared. While this may seem like an innocent mistake or oversight to some, it’s important to keep in mind that the neocons are obsessed with stifling bad publicity and punishing anyone who causes it. When Ambassador Joe Wilson exposed the fact that Iraq had never sought uranium from Niger, contrary to statements made by George Bush and other top neocons, the Bush administration leaked the identity and profession of Joe Wilson’s wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame to the media, ruining her career and causing the Plame-gate Scandal.
Thanks to their warrantless wiretaps, the neocons were able to spy on Pat Tillman’s private conversations. They would have found out that he opposed the Iraq War, that he was planning to get out of the military after his current tour of duty ended and that he was planning to meet with anti-war author Noam Chomsky. Thanks to this illegal surveillance, the neocons would have known that Pat Tillman leaving the military would be a public relations nightmare for them. There would be headlines proclaiming “War Hero Speaks Out Against Iraq War.” All the cable news shows would want to interview him. The neocons also knew that his diary would be full of his anti-war thoughts and reflections. Even if Pat Tillman were to die in action (or be murdered), his anti-war diary might be published as a book and become a best seller.
If the most famous hero of the “war on terror” publicly came out and began a speaking tour about how “illegal” and unjust the Iraq War was, then it would be very hard for all the neocon chickenhawks to smear anti-war critics as being “unpatriotic.”
This is why Pat Tillman’s diary disappeared after his death and this is why Tillman’s mysterious death has been surrounded with so many Pentagon lies to this day. My suspicion is that Tillman’s unit was either infiltrated by a CIA operative or one of the men in his unit was recruited by the CIA to kill Pat Tillman during a battle with the enemy. During the chaos of battle, someone crept up on Tillman and fired three rounds into his forehead at very short range silencing someone, who could have done great harm to the neocon cause.