There’s been talk that Pat Tillman, the former NFL player, who quit football to go into the military after September 11, 2001, might have been murdered to bolster the Country’s support of the war, instead of the original story that it was “friendly fire”. Below you’ll find a recent transcript of a portion of the ongoing military investigation.

Testimony in the Criminal Investigation Command Report

(released March 26, 2007)

Lockdown of information

Soldier in the Tactical Operations Command (TOC) center when the death of a soldier, identified by code name, was announced over the radio:

“When this came over the radio … I looked on the alpha roster and discovered that it was Pat Tillman who had been killed. I then told the other personnel who were in the [TOC]. There were four other bystanders in the TOC during this time. We rounded everyone else up to notify them that someone had been killed. The phones and Internet had been cut off, to prevent anyone from talking about the incident.”

Destruction of evidence

Soldier back at the base the evening Tillman’s body was brought in:

“At that time, I was in my tent [REDACTED] came to my tent and put a lock on communications … [REDACTED] then came to me with an orange plastic bag containing Cpl. Tillman’s clothes. He then related that he wanted me to burn what was in the bag for security purposes. Additionally [REDACTED] related he wanted me alone to burn what was in the bag for security purposes to prevent security violations, leaks, and rumors … I then took the bag to the back of [REDACTED]. I got a burn barrel and started it up. I began placing items of clothing into the burn barrel. [REDACTED] came out one time to ensure that everything was going all right … [REDACTED] then came back right at the end when I was finishing.”

This soldier testified he burned Tillman’s uniform, “socks, gloves and I believe the RBA [armor-plated vest] … I vividly recall one armor plate that I burned because … there appeared to be an indentation in the top right corner which I thought may have been where a round had impacted … The RBA itself was soiled with blood.” … He said he also burned a small notebook of Tillman’s.

Soldier from another platoon in the regiment on his actions three days after Tillman’s death:

“Then, after we were back [REDACTED] my 1SG [REDACTED] asked me to come with him to destroy Pat Tillman’s equipment. The first thing I pulled out was his Molle vest. I said to my 1SG that the holes in the vest appeared to be made by 5.56mm [American bullets] not 7.62mm [enemy ammunition]. He said they know and to keep quiet and let the investigators do their job. At this time was when I had realized Tillman may have been killed by friendly fire. At the place we destroyed his equipment there was body armor that was burned completely except for the actual plates.

…The 1SG had me tell him what equipment was being destroyed and he wrote it down. I do not know where the list went after that; I can just assume it was turned into higher.”

Asked why he was told to keep quiet, the soldier said, “…because [REDACTED] did not want me informing unit members that SPC Tillman was killed by friendly fire.” Rather, 1SG wasted the investigation to be the one that put out the official results. He said he did not see bullet fragments with the equipment but “I did see the flashbang [flash grenade] and it had also been hit with a 5.56 round. The last time I saw it was when [REDACTED] had it in an ammo can. He was going to destroy it.”

Quotes from the inspector general’s report

(released March 26, 2007)

Silver star fabrication

“LTC [REDACTED] said that he used the narrative and the two valorous award witness statements attributed to SGT [REDACTED] and PFC [REDACTED] to edit the citation. We interviewed [the two witnesses] who purportedly signed the two valorous award witness statements … PFC [REDACTED] … specifically recalled writing that CPL Tillman’s actions saved his life, but [he] stated that he did not sign the valorous award witness statement … [and] also pointed out parts he knows he did not write and parts that were not accurate.”

“SGT [REDACTED] was not as clear about writing a statement to support the award, but he testified that he might have. He testified that he did not sign such a statement. [He] confirmed some parts of the … statement as accurate. But [he] also pointed out parts that were inaccurate, in that he was unable to see CPL Tillman’s actions from his location. Finally, [he] pointed to a phrase “in the most gallant Ranger fashion” that he found ‘hokey’ and stated that it was a phrase that he would not have written.

“Based on our interviews, we believe the purported statements of SGT [REDACTED] and PFC [REDACTED] were submitted to LTC [REDACTED] by personnel NCOs at 2nd Battalion or at the Regiment, but we were not able to identify the specific drafter.”

Cry Me a River
Diana Krall

Alberto Gonzales, I Don’t Recall

BEAUFORT, S.C. - A Navy F-18 Blue Angel jet crashed during an air show Saturday, plunging into a neighborhood of small homes and trailers and setting at least one on fire, witnesses said. One person was killed.

Witnesses said the planes were flying in formation during the show at the Marine Corps Air Station and one dropped below the trees and crashed. Raymond Voegeli, a plumber, was backing out of a driveway when the plane ripped through a grove of pine trees, dousing his truck in flames and debris.

“It was just a big fireball coming at me,” said Voegeli, 37. “It was just taking pine trees and just clipping them.”

He said wreckage hit “plenty of houses and mobile homes.”

John Sauls, who lives near the crash site, said the planes were banking back and forth before one disappeared, and a plume of smoke shot up.

“It’s one of those surreal moments when you go, ‘No, I didn’t just see what I saw,’” Sauls said.

At the Blue Angels command headquarters at Pensacola Naval Air Station the petty officer on duty said he “had no comment at this time.”

A woman who answered the phone at the county coroner’s office said one person died in the crash. It was not immediately clear who it was. The phone rang unanswered at the Marine base.

More than 100,000 were expected to attend the air show and the Blue Angels were the main attraction. The elite aerial-demonstration team, which is based at Pensacola, recently celebrated its 60th anniversary.

The pilot has been confirmed dead by the coroner.

XI’AN, China - Clutching a grimy tote bag filled with legal documents and photos of her executed son, Meng Zhaoping is trying to argue her way past a security guard at the provincial high court for the second day in a row.

All she wants is an audience with a court officer, she says, her voice echoing down the building’s empty hallways. All she has are two questions: Why was her son put to death? What happened to his body?

The answer to the first question is in the charge sheet: He knifed a man to death in a brawl. The second answer, she is convinced, lies in a much-criticized Chinese practice - taking organs taken from executed prisoners for transplant surgery.

“Let me talk to someone! Give me justice!” Meng shouts as the guard blocks her way.

Ever since her son was convicted and executed in January 2005, Meng has been searching for an explanation. She never saw his body. His corpse, tagged No. 207, was put in a hospital van and taken to a crematorium.

By then, Meng believes, the body had been stripped of its organs.

Full story (long read, but worth it) at YAHOO!

Washington State Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law Saturday a measure to create domestic partnerships, giving gay and lesbian couples some of the same rights that come with marriage.

The law creates a domestic partnership registry and provides enhanced rights for same’sex couples, including hospital visitation rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations and inheritance rights when there is no will.

“It offers the hope that one day, all lesbian and gay families will be treated truly equal under the law,” said state Sen. Ed Murray, who is one of five openly gay lawmakers in the Legislature.

To be registered, couples have to share a home, not be married or in a domestic relationship with someone else and be at least 18.

Unmarried, heterosexual senior couples will also be eligible to register if one partner is at least 62. Lawmakers said that provision was included to help seniors who are at risk of losing pension rights and
Social Security benefits if they remarry.

The new law will take effect in July. It comes nearly a year after the state Supreme Court upheld Washington’s ban on same’sex marriage in a 5-4 decision, ruling that state lawmakers were justified in passing the 1998 Defense of Marriage Act, which restricts marriage to unions between a man and woman.

Found the following on AMERICAblog

Lee Iacocca is my new hero. This is a must-read!

Excerpt from BORDERS:

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

By Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney

Had Enough?

Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course.”

Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I’ll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I’m getting senile, that I’ve gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That’s not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I’ve had enough. How about you?

I’ll go a step further. You can’t call yourself a patriot if you’re not outraged. This is a fight I’m ready and willing to have….

Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them-or at least some of us did. But I’ll tell you what we didn’t do. We didn’t agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn’t agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that’s a dictatorship, not a democracy….

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It’s all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn’t safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day-and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.

That was George Bush’s moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he’d regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq-a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn’t listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn’t scare the crap out of you, I don’t know what will….

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn’t elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don’t you guys show some spine for a change?

Hey, I’m not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I’m trying to light a fire. I’m speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I’ve had the privilege of living through some of America’s greatest moments. I’ve also experienced some of our worst crises-the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s this: You don’t get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it’s building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That’s the challenge I’m raising in this book. It’s a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It’s not too late, but it’s getting pretty close. So let’s shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let’s tell ‘em all we’ve had enough.

WASHINGTON — When former White House chief of staff Andrew Card appeared on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” last Monday, host Jon Stewart was so taken with Card’s dry humor that he marveled, “You are the nicest man I ever didn’t want to like I’ve ever met.”

But when Representative Henry Waxman of California saw Card on television, the influential chairman of the House Government and Oversight Committee was not amused.

Two weeks earlier, Waxman, known as one of the Democrats’ most feared investigators, had asked Card to appear before Congress about the leak of the identity of former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson, but the White House, citing executive branch policy, rejected Waxman’s request. After Card’s appearance, Waxman promptly dashed off a stinging, three-page letter to Card.

“You appeared on ‘The Daily Show’ with Jon Stewart and discussed the leak of Ms. Wilson’s identity,” Waxman wrote. The White House’s position, he told Card, “appears to be that it is appropriate for you to discuss these matters on ‘The Daily Show,’ but not before a congressional committee. You will not be surprised to learn I take a different view of the matter.”

More at Boston.com

More on the Waxman letters here