This isn’t David murdering Uriah to steal his wife on a battlefield consisting of swords, shields and arrows.

Caught my comment on the Rowe-back-to-Iraq story, eh?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/08/01/tillman.probe/index.html

“I know that I would not engage in a cover-up. I know that no one in the White House suggested such a thing to me,” Rumsfeld testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is examining what senior Defense Department officials knew about Tillman’s April 2004 death by friendly fire and when they knew it.

Friendly fire has always been a fact of war and always will be. In movies, it’s pretty obvious who and where everyone is. In reality, it’s anything but. When you have a bunch of young men with guns being attacked, lots of tragic accidents can happen.

Even in ancient history, when men fought in linear formations with edged weapons, there was inadvertent killing of allies. When the men in line stirred up dust while hacking at the foe in the opposing line, the line could undulate and form a salient, doubling back on itself. The two lines of soldiers, both on the same side, blinded by airborne dust, double back on each other and the soldiers would hack at each other unknowing.

Blue on blue deaths is why they invented uniforms way back in ancient armies.

5.56 ball ammo round fired from an M-16A2 has a muzzle velocity of 975 m/s.
At close range things like heads pretty much explode.
Having a stable target remaining for the subsequent shots is unlikely and superfluous.

TheSitRep on July 31, 2007 at 9:30 PM

Hell, a .30-06 will do that from a few feet away…like you said, the head explodes when fired upon at close range. I thought even a .22 could do some serious damage to the head when fired point-blank.

Wouldn’t Tillman’s missing head from those 3 M-16 rounds have been mentioned before now? (That’s a rhetorical question, mind you…)

If they don’t want us honoring him for serving his country because of friendly fire & cover-up, that’s one thing…but then to use him as a propaganda tool for the Anti-US crowd?

Typical hypocrisy from the Anti-War Left.

Time to take a breath and then back into the mud filled trenches. Between now and September you will be called on to defend the integrity of General Peteraus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

What you’re doing reminds me of stepping on cockroaches. Crunching one seems to have no effect on the others.

JinxMcHue on August 1, 2007 at 1:08 AM

Hopefully they’ll take Weekly World News’ cue and fold.

The facts will never convince them, but they help show everybody else how disturbed these people are.

But if the scary world is as irrational and the frights are as widespread as they appear, then the left is completely and *totally powerless to do anything about anything. It’s a world where strength, resolve, and action are necessary to preserve our liberty and civilization. **Do any of those qualities describe the average leftist today?

*This as you so aptly allude to Bryan, explains their the need for a conspiracy theory in any “loony” mind .

**In short, “No”

You really have out done yourself again on explaining truth, wisdom, strength, resolve and action.

but this is Wonkette were talking about…Wonkette!

Topsecretk9 on July 31, 2007 at 9:19 PM

Bryan, as you write dismissively of Skankette’s journalistic ethics, might I remind you that her big break came as a publicity pimp for a D.C. prostitute to congressional staffers. I admire your clarity of thought on this difficult story, and your clarity of ethics in refusing to stoop to linking to that skank.

Who needs reality when you can create your own!?

Someone on Riehl world view coined a new one

Community-Based-Reality

Who needs reality when you can create your own!?
John from OPFOR on July 31, 2007 at 9:54 PM

That’s true and the mindcrimes of Scott Thomas, etc are a fount of this stuff. But somewhere on the line, someone has to buying into the propaganda unless it is done simply for its own sake. Which is possible I guess. Sure seems to apply to Reid and co.

The cover-up was as goddammned stupid as firing without a clear target.

(Tillman was ill-advised to stand up and wave with gunfire going on. Stay down and wave a shirt on a rifle.
Shirts don’t die.)

A mess, all around.

They should have just admitted that it was a tragedy, immediately, and let everyone understand that warfare is semi-organized hysterical chaos, at best, and well-meaning potential heroes die in idiotic snafus, too.

As the history of every war shows, from The Horns of Hattin disaster during the Crusades to the “amphibious tanks” sinking like stones, crew and all, into the ocean on D-Day.

That’s what blows my mind on these things. Where is the connection to reality?

Who needs reality when you can create your own!?

incompetent generals can find a warm home on the left by blaming their poor leadership on everyone in the chain of command above them?

I must be psychic. I knew that link was to a Karpinski story. :::spit:::

I second Topsecretk9. Doesn’t Wonkette carry about as much weight and credibility as The National Enquirer … or less?

jeremiad on July 31, 2007 at 9:45 PM

You and k9 are missing the big point, first, the insane fixation on conspiracy theories. Second, as Ace and a fellow moroncommenter point out, the left only views the serviceman in two forms, the callous, bloodthirsty savage like Beauchamp describes, or a victim of the malevolent Bush regime, as they are now with Tillman.