Diogenes Redux
This body may incriminate;
I move that we incinerate.
It's best that we remove all trace
Of everything that's taken place
--Burning the Body, by Send More Paramedics
________
The most recent revelations this week on the Pat Tillman case lead one into paranoid terrain ("Tilman Doc Was Suspicious of Wounds," Marine Corps Times.) However, as WaPo columnist Eugene Robinson also wrote this week, this is a great time to be paranoid.
Totting them all up:
[1] The retired General Kensinger, who said during testimony, “You’ve got me really scared about my brain right now. I’m really having a problem,” is being censured, and may lose a star. That he is frightened for the state of his brain brings shades of The Manchurian Candidate along with it.
Of course for Mr. Rumsfeld, who was also called to account during the testimony, and who also said his brain was on holiday, claiming no recollection was not a problem. Once one has excised all traces of conscience, one does not suffer pedestrian emotions like fear or worry. But do they think censuring the retired General will set things aright in this shady business?
That is feeble and coerced punishment, as someone has to be whipped now that the lies have been revealed. But his wrist-slapping does not yet give us the truth.
For a bully-boy culture, it may seem that spanking is expiation enough. But truth is a higher ground than that.
[2] The coroner's report indicates the source of fire from 10 meters away. Certainly sounds like an accident to this Ranger. Smoke on that for awhile -- 10 m. away, and three to the head! At 10 meters, even well diggers at midnight can identify one another.
[3] Obviously the base of fire did not shoot Tillman when he was on the maneuver element. The fire came from within the maneuver element. This is much harder to fob off as an accidental shooting.
Why was Tillman's element maneuvering away from the main body when there were no enemy present?
[4] Has anybody done background checks on the shooter or identified shooter for CIA linkages? Or does the Army claim still that they cannot find him, now that he has been released from duty.
[5] Where are Tillman's diaries? The Army has reported his diary was burned due to being blood-soaked, but surely there were others among his personal effects.
The Army's portrayal of events is Lovecraftian. Pure science fiction at best; downright lying at worst. There are too many layers of deception, and it goes all the way to the White House. It stops at the Big Buck, yet GWB has invoked executive privilege to avoid answering inquiries regarding the White House's role in this affair.
Since GWB likes to dress up like a military member, one could easily mistake him for the Commander-in-Chief. And there is no C-in-C privilege to duck and cover that this dumb Ranger is aware of.
Commanders answer the tough questions without flinching, and Press Secretary-type quibbling.
Labels: general kensinger, tillman coverup
posted by rangeragainstwar at 4:18 PM
9 Comments:
That was quite good, Ranger.
Nice to see someone with military experience bringing that experience to bear on the analysis of the Tillman murder.
i doubt that we will ever really know what happened to pat tillman. i would hope that by now, some sense of honor, some shred of decency would have brought someone to a place of telling the truth regardless of consequence. it is hard for me to imagine the wounds described as being part of any kind of accident. it is damned near impossible for me to imagine this as a "hit" ordered from above. i think of what my reaction to such orders would have been and the person giving the order would have been in far greater danger than the target proposed. that there has been such a degradation of what i thought to be the core values of serving personell. an erosion of the ethics of soldiers, something which used to cross the battles lines of enemies. i don't know what this whole mess will leave us with when it comes to our armed forces. i know that folks like me will have a hell of time recognising the things we loved about it.
at the beginning of the peloponniesian war, pericles in a funeral oration after one of the first battles warned the athenians that if they allowed the war with sparta to change the nature of who they were as a people and how they behaved as a society that the spartans would have won the conflict regardless of any outcomes on battlefields.
in many ways, the terrorists who attacked us have already had their victory. we have seen a our liberties eroded, our national reputation sullied. so many of the things that defined us as a nation and a people are gone. it's hard to imagine any battlefield success that would make it all worthwhile.
i grieve for that.
minstrel boy,
An excellent historical analogy, and our grief is shared.
That is the thing we most grieve at Ranger, namely, that so many Americans were led down the garden path, and agreed to shuttle their long-cherished declarations of human dignity and freedom in order to compete on the level with those relatively few who would do us harm.
I remember cringing in the days after 9-11, when friends all about me kept parroting the rhetoric -- "All has changed, now." Sadly, and ironically, all has changed. But as a result of our own making, and much to our detriment,
--Lisa
What about this bit from Dave Lindorff?
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/2007.08.01_arch.html#1186803096252
Sean,
Goff's series originally ran at Counterpunch. I'll give you the same response I posted at Main and Central (with Lurch's indulgence):
"I disagree with your eagerness to drop the ball on Tillman.
While I am glad there is a Stan Goff in the world, he ponders the question, Why Haven't They Killed Him yet, if there really were a nefarious death squad out to kill folks like Tillman.
Well, first of all, it is fallacious reasoning to say that because he has not been done in, therefore, they are incapable of killing anyone. Mr. Goff is surely not the penultimate target.
Goff makes a bit much of himself. With his late-found Marxist/feminist rhetoric, he comes off a bit sophomoric, and just the sort the government might like to keep out there as an example of a wacky liberal. This is the best and brightest of deviant Delta Force members? He presents no threat."
. . .
"I, too, do not believe Cpl. Tillman was fragged. I believe his men liked him quite a bit. I believe this was an outside job, as in, a plant.
Forgive me if this sounds like rogue conspiracy theory. These times have allowed for that sort of thinking. And it is the only explanation I can find that makes sense, given the facts we have been given, and the "disappearance" of certain team elements.
As for Mr. Goff's sensitivities, I believe they are relevant vis-a-vis his self-aggrandizement in his current dismissal of foul-play vs. Tillman. If he feels himself so revolutionary that surely he would be a target, and he lives on, then lowly Tillman surely could not have been a target.
Knowing what I do of both, Tillman was a riper target than Mr. Goff, who remains safely ensconced in N.C."
--Lisa
Sean,
Ranger sending: Thanks for your concern.
Ranger did not want to write this, as he did not want to get the stink of death on him. This whole incident is so nefarious, that even addressing it, one appears paranoid.
Ranger tries to be objective and based in reality, albeit his own reality based upon experience.
Ranger stands by his comments that the deadly fire came from within the fire team. If the fire team, as a maneuver element, was properly deployed, than surely there would have been 10 m. between individuals, precluding multiple injuries from RPGs and machine gun bursts.
Hence Ranger's estimate that the fire came from within his maneuver element. Obviously, merely my hypothesis based upon knowledge of small unit tactics.
Ranger led two different platoons in an infantry division.
Another question that comes to mind: Why did Tillman's element not have R/T communications with the platoon/company. The Rangers are supposed to have all that high -tech equipment; you don't want to lose a ranger. That is why we call them elite forces.
m.b.,
Ranger sends: Well-said. This is what Thomas Paine would have said today if he were alive.
This whole incident is so nefarious, that even addressing it, one appears paranoid.
indeed. it would be a huge emotional blow to me to be forced to believe that comrades in the field would ever, under any circumstance, be complicit in the assaination of one of their own. my mind is incapable of wrapping around that. still, the facts, if we have any facts at all, are stubborn things. a shot to the forehead at close range is a hard thing to envision as accidental. fragging was something unknown in my branch. it was an over reported thing among the regulars. but a hit? ordered from above and carried out in the field? by his brothers in arms?
if we have indeed sunk this far with the character and ethical fiber of our officers and men i shudder to think in the future tense.
m.b.,
Ranger sends: We are in total agreement, but I take it one step further. This is why I asked if there were any new attachments to this unit just prior to the incident, and how soon did they disappear from the unit.
Since most CIA paramilitary types served in the Rangers or SF, they would fit into the unit seamlessly. CIA paramilitary types historically take the SF Officers Course b/f employment, or as a condition of employment.
This is the rock under which Ranger would look.
If we can't find three former Rangers who were involved in this incident, what are our chances of finding OBL? If you can't find three of these former Rangers, it is reasonable to assume they have taken deep cover, or they were deep cover to begin with.
The concept of fragging does not fit this scenario. Fragging implies hurting someone in the chain or command purposefully, or through negligence.
As an E4, Tillman would not be a target of fragging. In fact, it's probably the E4's that do the fragging. The usual subject of fragging is LT's, both young and inexperienced.
The justification for the fragging is to protect oneself and one's unit members from poor leadership. Historically, the term "poor leadership" does not relate to Ranger unit standards.
And I disagree--Marines did frag their officers in VN. When I was a platoon leader, one of my squad leaders was sent permissive TDY to his brother's court martial. the brother was found guilty of killing his platoon leader. The Marine's last name was Thomas, 1969.
Possibly, fragging was not rampant in the Marine corps, and certainly, not in the units you served with.
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