14
9
7
When we consider the alternatives of accident or assassination in this case, we have to compare their likelihoods In relation to the available evidence. If Tillman had been killed accidentally, even by “friendly fire”, then what is the probability that no evidence of friendly fire would be produced, that the Lt. General would suffer 70 “memory lapses”, that the corporal would have been shot three times in the head, that honors would be bestowed upon him, that the doctors would have suspected he was murdered, and that Army attorneys would impede criminal investigations? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to conclude that something is very wrong here. The probability of these effects appears to be very high if he was deliberately taken out and very low if his death was accidental, friendly fire or not.
And there is more. On July 26, 2007, for example, the AP received official documents stating that the doctors who performed the autopsy suspected that Tillman was murdered. High ranking officers knew better at least four days before his nationally televised memorial service during which he “was lauded as a war hero for dying while engaging the enemy”. Members of Tillman's unit burned his body armor and uniform. Tillman's diary was never returned to his family, and its whereabouts are not publicly known. As a former Marine Corps commissioned officer, I affirm that this treatment of the personal property of a deceased is not proper procedure. The missing diary is especially striking, since diaries are legally admissible as evidence in courts of law and would have attested to his state of mind.
Some prominent news personalities have figured out that something seems to be wrong. On July 26, 2007, for example, Chris Matthews reported that Tillman's death might have been a case of fragging (of the deliberate killing of a soldier by his comrades at arms) because the bullet holes were tight and neat, suggesting that he was shot at close range. Matthews based his speculation on a report from the doctors who investigated Tillman's body. The following day the AP reported that a doctor who examined Tillman's body after his death wrote, "The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," also noting that the wound entrances appeared as though he had been shot with an M16 rifle from less than 10 yards (9 m) away.” Even his mother, in her disturbing book, BOOTS ON THE GROUND BY DUSK (2008), has been shaken by the way the military has handled the death of her son.
The Official Finding
On March 26, 2007, the Pentagon released their report on the events surrounding Tillman's death and cover-up. The report reads in part:
we emphasize that all investigators established the basic facts of CPL Tillman's death -- that it was caused by friendly fire, that the occupants of one vehicle in CPL Tillman's platoon were responsible, and that circumstances on the ground caused those occupants to misidentify friendly forces as hostile. None of the investigations suggested that CPL Tillman's death was anything other than accidental. Our review, as well as the investigation recently completed by Army CID, obtained no evidence contrary to those key findings.
The denial of contrary evidence appears to be contrived. If the doctors even suspected murder, if there were three shots to the head, and if they were tightly grouped and appeared to have been fired from close range by an M-16 from less than 10 yards away, the “friendly fire” scenario looks more and more like deliberate misinformation. Tillman is not the kind of man his fellow soldiers would frag. On the contrary, he is just the kind of guy—and football star, no less—his fellow soldiers would have respected and admired. He’s the kind of guy they would have written home about! Indeed, the article confirms that Tillman "was popular among his fellow soldiers and had no enemies". They harbored no reason to murder him.
He may have been killed by a member of the armed forces, which could have been obscured by the use of the phrase, “friendly fire”, but it would not have been by his comrades in arms. Interestingly, there are reports of snipers in a second group of troops that encountered Pat's squad shortly before an explosive device went off and the shooting started. This looks like an idea situation in which a designated assassin, who was a member of this second group, could have used the chaotic conditions created by the detonation of a distracting explosive device to take out a man who could have become an outspoken opponent of the war, especially if the members of this ring are military. In my opinion, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove would not have let his opposition to the war become public knowledge. His death does not appear to have been an accident.
The Death of a 9/11 Activist
The plane crash that took the life of 9/11 activist Beverly Eckert troubled me because of its striking similarities to the crash that took the life of Paul Wellstone. The plane, a Bombardier Q400, was an excellent commuter carrier with a 74-passenger capacity. Like the King Air A-100, it had no history of mechanical problems. Philip Trenary, the head of the Pinnacle Airlines that operated the plane, stated, “It’s an aircraft that’s had flawless service.” Reports of the weather appear to have been greatly exaggerated, where the plane, like the King Air A-100, was equipped with sophisticated de-icing equipment. Moreover—and this is especially notable—there was no distress call from the plane. According to an early report, Flight 3407 came straight down out of the sky, killing 50 persons, including Eckert.
There have been several stories about the crash in The New York Times, for example, including “Crew Reported 'Significant Ice Buildup' Before Crash” (February 14, 2009), “In Plane Crash, Loss of Momentum Still a Mystery” (February 15, 2009), and “Recreating a Plane Crash” (February 19 2009), where Matthew L. Wald offers speculation that the crew might have “overreacted” to a computerized flight-control system “trying to protect the aircraft from flying too slowly, going into a stall and crashing”.
Unfortunately, there are a number of disturbing signs that what we are being told does not add up. Consider the alleged ice-buildup. That report seems to be contradicted by the transcript of the final communications, as What Really Happened has highlighted, which has been compounded by another exaggerated report about the ice build-up in The New York Times. A very difference impression comes from Last moments of Buffalo Flight 3407, Webmaster's Commentary, What Really Happened, on February 13, 2009 (www.whatreallyhappened.com) as follows:
Read the transcript of the final communications from Colgan Flight 3407 in Buffalo.
No mention of ice being a problem for aircraft.
There is a brief incidental mention that there is an area of icing, but it is clear that nobody sees this as a problem. No mention of any problems at all.
3407 is there one moment, then gone the next.
