Tristero

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Paranoia Strikes Deep  

Via Digby comes an article on the strange death, from friendly fire, of sports star and soldier Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. Bottom line: the article implies and Digby explicitly conjectures that Tillman, a vocal opponent of both the Iraq war and Bush, could have been fragged because his fame made him too dangerous to the powers that be.

Personally, I doubt it. I seriously doubt Tillman was fragged; the article makes a very slim case for believing anyone proactively caused Tillman's death.* But if more evidence accumulates and the case fattens up, it would come as no surprise. To believe that some Bush supporters would resort to cold-blooded murder of a fellow American if they thought it would serve their cause takes very little imagination.

Not after seeing "joke" hunting licenses targeting liberals. Not after Coulter said the only problem she had with McVeigh is that he didn't target the NY Times building. Not after opponents of the Iraq war were repeatedly labelled "objectively pro Saddam." Not after Bush opponents were labelled apologists for terrorism by some of the most prominent politicians, media sources, and pundits in this country.

And certainly not after "extraordinary rendition," Abu Ghraib, and all the other tortures, murders and Bush-perpetrated horrors in Iraq and Afghanistan.



*True, what concerns Digby and led to his speculation of fragging is far more substantive than the nonsense that caused Falwell and others to accuse Clinton of murder, drug running, and the like. But it still falls short, as I read it, of leading to plausible suspicions of deliberate murder. One more reason to marvel at how outrageous the rightwing charges against Clinton actually were.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:36 PM