actually, it would only take one person to decide to cover this up, and order the others to keep silent. or, it could have been others not present who conspired to cover it up and ordered all witnesses to keep silent. it would not require any conspiracy by those present at his death. soldiers follow orders and conspiracies of their superiors.

now add on the statistical probability that a bunch of enlisted people wopuld willingly participate as accessories after the fact in a cold-blooded murder …. and we begin to appreciate how unlikely this scenario is.

now add on the statistical probability that a bunch of enlisted people wopuld willingly participate in burning of possessions and uniform of a fellow soldier (all who had great respect for him) who was killed accidentally and we begin to appreciate how unique the scenario may have been.

the situation was extraordinary, so was the response. under extraordinary circumstances statistical probabilities get scewed.

Why were his diary and uniform burned? This certainly can’t be standard practice.

Is there any chance that you might devote a future post here to this very subject? It would be a great resource for linking to in order to counter the wild-eyed “conspiracy-affines”. (LOVE that term!)

One other question, if I may — do you know if the drone footage question was ever resolved? http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3071449

Thanks again — I’m so glad I found your site.

Just wondering if this new information from the AP:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TILLMAN_FRIENDLY_FIRE?SITE=MABED&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

AP Exclusive: New Documents Shed Light on Ex-NFL Player and Army Ranger Pat Tillman’s Death

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.

is part of what you already know.

I’m not at all interested in promoting any “conspiracy theories”, I’m just wondering if this new information moves Tillman’s cause of death due to “friendly fire” closer to a possibility of a deliberate fragging.

STAN: Not unless it occurred in front of at least eight people, all who had great respect for him, and who conspired to cover this up together. Two of the top gunshot specialists in forensic pathology in the nation agree with me that this was likely a squad automatic weapon (same caliber as an M-4). The army dummied up the distances, then drew them down to 85 meters to support a “fog of war” thesis (as opposed to the actual serial violations of the ROE that did occur… more likely at around 40 meters. The three shots that killed Pat were actually two tight, and one flyer, all head shots and each instantly fatal on its own account. Now think in slow motion. Let me begin with the terminal ballistics one never sees in films and on tv. Destruction of the connectionn between the brain stem and the rest of the body caused a body to fall… straight down. No, people do not fly through the air like the stunt-people in Hollywood. Straight down. This happens instantly. The new theory proposed by some so-called expert, says that this tight shot-group (less than 4 inches) could only have been fired by someone shooting on semi-automatic (one shot at a time, even if in rapid succession). A fully-automatic weapon, like the Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) that is presumed (by me and two of the top forensics experts in the country) to be the lethal weapon, according to this theory, cannot fire this shot group because automatic weapons can not be controlled for this tight a shot-group. This premise is the basis of the presumed distance (10 meters) and mode of fire (semi-auto)/weapon (M-4) in the ne AP-propogated theory. Two problems: (1) the theory about auto fire is wrong, and (2) Pat was shot in the face three times, while facing downhill, and standing on a steep incline dropping to his front. (2) first. For this to have been an M-4 fiing on semi, the shooter would have had to fire, reaquire, fire, reaquire, and fire again, before Pat fell to the ground (straight down, on a steep forward inclining piece of terrain, with a large stone in front of him to prevent him tumbling down the hill). Even a very good rapid-fire shooter could not have place all three shots together quickly enough to fire the second and third shots before Pat fell away from the sight alignment. The only 5.56 mm weapon that could have placed those shots that quickly in the same place was the SAW… cyclic rate of auto-fire: 850 rounds per minute (14 rounds per second, ergo, three rounds in 2/10 of a second). Physics and pysiology matter; now add on the statistical probability that a bunch of enlisted people wopuld willingly participate as accessories after the fact in a cold-blooded murder (that just happened to coincide with an unplanned (but ineffectual) ambush)… and we begin to appreciate how unlikely this scenario is. Now for number (1). I’ll happily go to the range with anyone who cares to set it up today (which can be arranged with anyone who has been trained with the SAW), and demosntrate that these tight groups very well can be fired from a Saw, when they are part of a con tinuous firing cycle that allows the gunner to first walk the fire onto a target, then tighten down on the weapon as he orients on the impact signature (The rock in front of Pat was covered with bullet strikes.). There are family members who will not easily dismiss this because they are not experts on these things, and because the government has lied and covered up again and again and again on this case. I don’t fault them; and in fact I have great affection for them. The depth of their sense of betrayal would make anyone think the worst, and want someone to prove otherwise. More than this, I am not willing to say because I am still under a confidentiality agreement. Let me say this, though. If this case becomes about a conspiracy to murder, the focus is taken off the likely suspects for the real cover-up and crime, and the ones who all these sacrifices of Geneals have been designed to protect… Donald Rumsfeld, Lawrence DeRita, and probably George W. Bush. They are all loving this right now.

AP: New Details on Tillman’s Death

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

How does this article square with what you know?

Also, what purpose is this article serving and who would benefit?

Tillman’s death seems to have a life of its own. What is going on and why does this particular story appear now and to what end? Thanks for any insight in advance.

Congratulations, admitting it is the first step.

It is one of the hardest things I’ve wrapped my mind around, in a long time.

I am going to make sure my daughter reads this, when she has time to really concentrate on what is being said. Maybe, it will help her understand what she and her friends will be dealing with when all of their “loved ones” come home.

The Death Mask of War
From Adbusters #72, Jun-Jul 2007

All troops, when they occupy and battle insurgent forces, as in Iraq, or Gaza or Vietnam, are placed in “atrocity producing situations.” In this environment, surrounded by a hostile population, simple acts such as going to a store to buy a can of Coke means you can be killed. This constant fear and stress pushes troops to view everyone around them as the enemy. This hostility is compounded when the enemy, as in Iraq, is elusive, shadowy and hard to find. The rage soldiers feel after a roadside bomb explodes, killing or maiming their comrades, is one that is easily directed over time to innocent civilians who are seen to support the insurgents. It is a short psychological leap, but a massive moral leap. It is a leap from killing – the shooting of someone who has the capacity to do you harm – to murder – the deadly assault against someone who cannot harm you. The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing.

After four years of war, American Marines and soldiers have become socialized to atrocity. The American killing project is not described in these terms to a distant public. The politicians still speak in the abstract terms of glory, honor, and heroism, in the necessity of improving the world, in lofty phrases of political and spiritual renewal. Those who kill large numbers of people always claim it as a virtue. The campaign to rid the world of terror is expressed with this rhetoric, as if once all terrorists are destroyed evil itself will vanish. The reality behind the myth, however, is very different. The reality and the ideal clash when soldiers and Marines return home, alienating these combat veterans from the world around them, a world that still dines out on the myth of war and the virtues of the nation.

[In Full]

I love how conspiracy-affines refer to others as “naive,” when they themselves cannot describe the difference between correlation and causation

Go on then, enlighten me. Where in the discussion of Tillman’s death is there cause and effect at work? I’m entirely sure your excellent timeline summary doesn’t indicate cause and effect whatsoever. At best, it seems to be a chaotic (in the mathematical sense, not the colloquial sense) or a stochastic process, and any small perturbation along the timeline could have caused an outcome that didn’t include Tillman’s death. So, while I can differentiate between causation and correlation (even if forced to do the statistical maths with pencil and paper), I really don’t see what you’re on about as far as us “conspiracy-affines” and our apparent inability to clearly differentiate cause and correlation. And, let’s be honest, that was a rather shallow allusion to us types being incapable of dealing with “reality” as opposed to living in “fantasy.”

Tillman’s enlistment and subsequent death seem rather too pat. Sure, maybe it was just an accident. Sure, it’s not unusual for soldiers to die when they’re being shot at. All that as may be, the manner and timing of his death was sublime. Recruiting not going well. War not going to plan. Cue the All-American Hero (deceased) stage left and, at least for a while, those orchestrating the war now have an ideal “Hearts and Minds” public relations campaign, for immediate release. Those of us watching and listening remember Powell at the UN, we remember Blair in parliament, we remember “Mission Accomplished.” We remember Bremmer and several billions in cash missing, gone walk-about. We remember Haliburton and Blackwater. We remember Rumsfeld and 3 trillion unaccounted for. We remember Wilson and Plame, and Libby and Cheney and Judith Miller. We remember “Shock and Awe.” We remember Watergate and Kent State. We remember Whitewater and Mena. Hell, we remember the Ford Pinto, and asbestos, and cigarettes with jumped up nicotine. So when we see a guy like Tillman die and then we witness the tawdry, cynical charade his death becomes as its manipulated and milked for as much value as it can bring to the establishment, well we balk. Our gag reflex kicks in. We feel nauseous. Why? Because we simply find the whole story so damned implausible. Even if it is true. Why? Because a guy like Tillman just doesn’t die for no damned good reason. A guy like Tillman just doesn’t take a bullet like any other soldier and die. Even if that is the truth. A guy like Tillman doesn’t still believe in the myth of service to country, especially now it’s under the rule of such evil incarnate. A guy like Tillman just doesn’t die unless he’s being used by that evil. Otherwise, a guy like Tillman becomes just another statistic. A guy like Tillman becomes just another casualty. Never to stride into another stadium. Never to sign another autograph. And the waste becomes too damned big for us to stomach. Too damned big to swallow. Somebody, somebody, has to be responsible. He had to have been used by that evil for its own ends. If he wasn’t used by that evil, then we’re all guilty of his death because we’ve all allowed him to go. We could have stopped him. We could have stopped the war.

So, no, I don’t ascribe to your pathetic “conspiracy-affines” sideswipe. Given all I’ve seen and heard and read over the years I’ve been here, to trust the account given by a government or a corporation, as mediated and modified and manipulated by the press, to think the truth was he just died and that’s it, would be infantile. Maybe if I’d been privy to your “non-disclosure” information I too would have developed the same timeline as yours. But as long as revelations of wire tapping unfold, as long as executive orders further concentrating executive power continue to be signed, as long as liars and flunkies sentences are commuted by presidents who have no legal power to commute sentences, then you know what? The first thing I’m going to wonder is, which of those evil shits we’ve allowed to take over has done it this time. If you think that’s “conspiracy-affines” thinking, then hey, may I’m one of those “conspiracy-affines” after all.