AP: Pat Tillman Shot 3 Times to Head at Close Range

[Velvet Elvis]

A lot of outlets aren't carrying this.

The White House has declared executive privilege in this matter and won't discuss it.

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/topstories_story_207212230.html

Anyone who isn't crazy isn't paying enough attention.

[AirMarshall]

I don't see anything surprising or anything resembling a cover up at this initial level. The medical examiner was told it was a combat death from enemy fire. The facts didn't fit, so he was trying to figure out what happened. If he had been told it was a possible friendly fire incident, he wouldn't have struggled to figure it out. Very simple.

a.m.

[Velvet Elvis]

and the whitehouse claiming executive privilidge?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7071301929.html

This?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/24/til...ring/index.html

Wes Clark's take on it:

http://securingamerica.com/node/2577

[AirMarshall]

The Whitehouse claiming executive privilege is just absurd. But the idea that there even exist 10,000 pages of documents pertaining to his death is fantastically absurd!!!! Thats just mind boggling.

Spc O'Neal's being told not to talk to the brother with details of the incident immediately afterwards is not unreasonable if the purpose was to allow word about the death to be delivered to the family through official channels. Nothing unreasonable there. Unfortunately, we don't get the whole story of all the background, specific times, dates places in this tiny part of the story. One bit of direction given by a company commander the morning after the firefight on a helicopter ride back to base doesn't mean that 4 months later a 3 star general was personally keeping pressure on the Spc. about this. Context is everything.

Wes Clark is just freewheeling and blowing smoke about a criminal investigation. As I stated above, this comes from taking one isolated fact out of context, i.e. the medical examiner didn't know that there had been a friendly fire incident. Spc, O'Neal hasn't raised any question about the rest of the platoon attempting to murder him and Pat!! It was pure fog of war situation. We still haven't seen the final analysis of the incident. It may turn out that Pat Tillman was responsible for his own death by being in the wrong place at the wrong time or failing to follow procedures. Obviously there is a general failure in not having a reliable means of communications or identification which would have halted the fire.

The Army does need to clean house and punish the officers who covered this up and lied about it. Certainly within two or three days the field officers knew that this was a friendly fire incident.

a.m.

[Maddy]

Yeah baby!

I'm Pat FUCKING Tillman!

[Velvet Elvis]

AM: You're ex-military so you know more about this than me. How hard is it to get a 3 shot grouping on a space the size of a man's forehead? How hard would it be to do that without noticing who it is? Can that kind of grouping happen with three shot bursts and bad luck? At what range?

Aren't the rangers supposedly the best trained light infantry in the world?

[AirMarshall]

In shooting anything is possible if you fire enough rounds. The hit could have been intentionally aimed, or fired in Tillmans general direction. I've seen three rounds go through the same hole on paper! Amazing if I hadn't seen it myself. All it takes is a steady gun. Yes the Rangers are the best of the army's infantry. The school is something like six or nine months long, after all regular training, and guys will attempt two or three times to get through it.

a.m.