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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.
Dr. Fetzer continues his analysis by analyzing the ‘official story’:
The denial of contrary evidence appears to be contrived. If the Army doctors had 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, his visit with Noam Chomsky may have sealed his fate. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove would not have wanted to allow his opposition to the war become public knowledge. His death appears to have been no more of an accident than the plane crash that took the life of Sen. Paul Wellstone.
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”. It turns out that 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. Also 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. Chris 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 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.”
Fetzer continues:
The cover-up can be revealing of the true dimensions of the crime. In this instance Mary Tillman, Pat’s mother, recounts the visit to their home by his former Battalion Commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bailey, to explain that Lt. David Uthlaut, Cpl. Tillman’s platoon commander, had misunderstood his order to have boots on the ground “by dusk”, which Lt. Uthlaut had misheard as boots on the ground “by dawn”. As Mary reports, Kevin, Pat’s brother, was incredulous and asks how that would be possible, since they should have been operating on military time. 0700 hours is not going to be confounded with 1900 hours, which is an impeccable point. And this was far from the only indication that they were dealing with fantastic explanations for his death.
The first explanation they were given (by Lt. Col. Bailey) included that a truck had broken down, which they had been required to tow through a canyon, where enemy combatants were known to lurk. His CO (Lt. Uthlaut) had divided his platoon, which was a tactical error, where Bailey explains that he did not know everything that was going on between Uthlaut and CENTCOM. The family was incredulous that actions in Afghanistan were being directed from MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FL, while the local on-scene commanders were being overruled. But that would have made sense of there had been command interest in this specific operation. Bailey explained how explosions and gunfire were being heard up the canyon and how Pat ran up a nearby hill in the company of Private Bryan O’Neal and an Afghan Militia Force (ALF) soldier, how Pat had tried to drop his gear to improve his position while Sgt. Greg Baker had shot the Afghan in the chest, killing him.
When Bailey questioned Baker, he had told him, “He was just a haji”, a denigrating term for an Afghan. According to Baker, the ALF soldier might have appeared to be firing toward Baker’s truck, even though it was not under fire at the time. When Pat’s brother asked about the visibility, Bailey told him that he had walked the site just 24 hours later and that the light conditions were the best of the day with no shadows. He was unable to explain why Pat was killed, after having identified himself and his fellow soldier as “friendlies”. He said that Pat had done everything he could have done, including tossing out a smoke grenade producing purple smoke. But he was shot in the leg and, after falling into a crouched position, there was another lull in the shooting and O’Neal could hear Pat trying to speak. Then the others opened up again. O’Neal heard what sounded like running water coming from the rock they were situated behind and realized he was covered with blood. Pat had been hit three times in the head.
Seventeen days later, family members would flown to Seattle for the official briefing by Lt. Col. Bailey in the presence of Col. James Nixon, who had been the regimental commander. They were dismayed that no formal report had yet been prepared and that they would be listening to a PowerPoint presentation. Bailey claimed he made some mistakes in his earlier briefing, where Sgt. Baker did not actually step out of his vehicle but, observing the ALF soldier in a prone position, shot him eight times in the chest. Other soldiers, following his lead, fired up the ridgeline, killing Pat as well as wounding Lt. Uthlaut and his radio operator. They wondered how it was possible to shoot a man who was lying prone eight time in the chest. Bailey went on, only now the visibility had been poor and there had been no lull in the shooting. The smoke was no longer purple but white and the troops thought it was dust blown up by their shooting. And now his reference to CENTCOM meant in Afghanistan, not in Florida. After the presentation, Col. Nixon told the family they could call him anytime.
There is more, but you get the idea. The inconsistencies between these accounts of the event means they cannot both be true, though they could both be false. The accidental death versus deliberate killing hypotheses, when evaluated based upon the available evidence, demonstrates that the deliberate killing hypothesis has a high likelihood, while the likelihood of the accidental killing hypothesis is low. Moreover, the evidence has “settled down”, which means that the corporal appears to have been targeted for assassination, where the motives appear to have been political. The Bush/Cheney administration would have been as opposed to having a macho, widely admired, anti-war advocate capture the public’s imagination as much as it wanted to rid itself of the charismatic, passionate and outspoken critic of its war agenda, Sen. Paul Wellstone. And, indeed, since the PowerPoint presentation, Cpl. Pat Tillman is still dead, no one has been court-marshaled and Lt. Col. Bailey has been promoted. The evidence all points in the same direction.
Infowars points out:
The motive for the murder would undoubtedly have been Tillman’s plans to return to the U.S. and a vocal critic of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions.
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.
What Pat Tillman may have discovered is that one of the big lies of the war in Afghanistan is that the US troops were guarding Opium fields for the drug trade. Many are already aware of the military and CIA involvement and control of the world drug trade. If not, please do your own research. It is true. There is a shadow government that controls the CIA and the upper echelons of the US, Britain, and many other countries. They use their power to control the drug trade for both money and control via corruption and enslavement to their addictive drugs. Addicts will do about anything for their next hit. Opium is the real reason for the war in Afghanistan and you can begin your further investigation here.
Cindy Sheenan’s son, Casey, was also killed under suspicious circumstances after he refused to go on a mission – with an evident cover up similar to Pat Tillman’s murder cover up by the government. She discusses both her son and Pat Tillman in the interview below.
Sources:
- Infowars
- Veterans Today
- Opium is the Real Reason for the Afghan War
Additional info:
- VIDEO: What ESPN Won’t Tell You About the Pat Tillman Murder
- VIDEO: US, Afghanistan, & Opium
- VIDEO: Pat Tillman’s Mom, Mary
- VIDEO: Afghanistan Lies & Pat Tillman Truth with Torrey Grossman (Enter the Buzzsaw)
- VIDEO: The Tillman Story (documentary)
Recommended Books:
On April 22, 2004, Lieutenant David Uthlaut received orders from Khost, Afghanistan, that his platoon was to leave the town of Magarah and “have boots on the ground before dark” in Manah, a small village on the border of Pakistan. It was an order the young lieutenant protested vehemently, but the commanders at the Tactical Command Center disregarded his objections. Uthlaut split his platoon into two serials, with serial one traveling northwest to Manah and serial two towing a broken Humvee north toward the Khost highway. By nightfall, Uthlaut and his radio operator were seriously wounded, and an Afghan militia soldier and a U.S. soldier were dead. The American soldier was my son, Pat Tillman.
The Tillman family was originally informed that Pat, who had given up a professional football career to serve his country, had been shot in the head while getting out of a vehicle. At his memorial service twelve days later, they were told that he was killed while running up a hill in pursuit of the enemy. He was awarded a Silver Star for his courageous actions. A month and two days after his death, the family learned that Pat had been shot three times in the head by his own troops in a “friendly fire” incident. Seven months after Pat’s death, the Tillmans requested an investigation.
Boots on the Ground by Dusk is a chronicle of their efforts to ascertain the true circumstances of Pat’s death and the reasons why the Army gave the family and the public a false story. Woven into the account are valuable and respectful memories of Pat Tillman as a son, brother, husband, friend, and teammate, in the hope that the reader will better comprehend what is really lost when our sons and daughters are killed or maimed in war.
In the course of three and a half years, there have been six investigations, several inquiries, and two Congressional hearings. The Tillmans are still awaiting an outcome.
Afghan-American journalist Fariba Nawa delivers a revealing and deeply personal exploration of Afghanistan and the drug trade which rules the country, from corrupt officials to warlords and child brides and beyond. Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns calls Opium Nation “an insightful and informative look at the global challenge of Afghan drug trade. Fariba Nawa weaves her personal story of reconnecting with her homeland after 9/11 with a very engaging narrative that chronicles Afghanistan’s dangerous descent into opium trafficking…and most revealingly, how the drug trade has damaged the lives of ordinary Afghan people.” Readers of Gayle Lemmon Tzemach’s The Dressmaker of Khair Khana and Rory Stewart’s The Places Between will find Nawa’s personal, piercing, journalistic tale to be an indispensable addition to the cultural criticism covering this dire global crisis.
THE OPIUM AND OIL WARS !: 2001 TO ???? Kindle Edition
