FRATRICIDE is definitely not FRIENDLY FIRE

Truth About Tillman ... Murder's Not 'Friendly Fire'

Once again, the Administration is pulling the old magician's trick of misdirection, this time in the Pat Tillman case. And once again, the press is falling for it. Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers focused on "what they knew and when" -- to borrow the Watergate phrase -- rather than the core issue at the heart of the Pat Tillman matter, which is this:
Pat Tillman was almost certainly murdered, and fratricide is not "friendly fire."
Yet a Google News search on the terms "Tillman" and "friendly fire" yielded 1,044 hits today, all from the last 24 hours. That's after the facts behind the fratricide are widely known - and after a number of clues that suggest the entire command structure, from the White House on down, concealed a murder from the public and took no steps to investigate it.
There's your story.
Friendly fire is commonly understood to mean the accidental death of a U. S. soldier through weapons fired by U.S. or allied troops. (See this definition.) The facts in the Tillman case make friendly fire highly unlikely. He died from three bullet holes grouped together in his forehead, fired from a M-16 that was no more than ten yards away.
Three bullet holes. In the forehead. From a M-16. That was ten yards away.
That's not "friendly fire." That's murder. (Unless Cpl. Tillman stood up in the path of another soldier's fire, took three hits precisely in the forehead, then fell before being hit again.)
As abhorrent as it was for the Administration to delay telling the family, the handling of the fratricide question was even worse. A killer's trail went cold. Now we may never know the truth. As for the narrative that Rumsfeld and Myers offered yesterday, let's look at it in detail - together with the known facts:
1. Pat Tillman dies. Medical examiners request a fratricide investigation sometime thereafter. Their request is denied.