[PatrickHenry]

Obie, this place is for debate not incitement. I have watched your style in this for weeks, if not months.

The "starting a thread" thing was mentioned as a JOKE, not to humiliate. And if you know what it really entails, it goes in the flame-fest(which nobody pays any attention to anyway). And the one I use for castille is to post his most outrageous, over-the-top direct QUOTES. Stuff he really wrote and posted on this forum. The mildest form of flaming, quoting the other debater without comment.

Don't act like you have done nothing that everyone else, and in particular, PatrickHenry, has not done. My style and yours are completely different. The reason I don't get warned is that I have been careful to follow Sean's very reasonable rules. Sourcing an argument is VERY important, and not something I have seen from you with any consistency. I like to post from published newspaper articles. And I try to respond to challenges to my thinking with a reasoned, sourced argument.

I will not attempt to characterize your style, for I think that it might be misinterpreted as a flame. But I think you could do better as a debater, if you wanted to. Just sticking to the issues is a worthy endeavor. If you have something to say about Tillman's enlistment or death, say THAT, and leave the accusations for a dedicated flame thread.

Nobody wants to see you gone, OberonDOtherseid. Just debate right and all the controversy goes away.

Now here is the second part of the Washington post story on Tillman: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...c5.html?sub=AR
or truthout if you won't register for the Post: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120704X.shtml

Just days after Pat Tillman died from friendly fire on a desolate ridge in southeastern Afghanistan, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command released a brief account of his last moments. The April 30, 2004, statement awarded Tillman a posthumous Silver Star for combat valor and described how a section of his Ranger platoon came under attack. "He ordered his team to dismount and then maneuvered the Rangers up a hill near the enemy's location," the release said. "As they crested the hill, Tillman directed his team into firing positions and personally provided suppressive fire ... Tillman's voice was heard issuing commands to take the fight to the enemy forces." It was a stirring tale and fitting eulogy for the Army's most famous volunteer in the war on terrorism, a charismatic former pro football star whose reticence, courage and handsome beret-draped face captured for many Americans the best aspects of the country's post-Sept. 11 character. It was also a distorted and incomplete narrative, according to dozens of internal Army documents obtained by The Washington Post that describe Tillman's death by fratricide after a chain of botched communications, a misguided order to divide his platoon over the objection of its leader and undisciplined firing by fellow Rangers. The Army's public release made no mention of friendly fire, even though at the time it was issued, investigators in Afghanistan had already taken at least 14 sworn statements from Tillman's platoon members that made clear the true causes of his death. The statements included a searing account from the Ranger nearest Tillman during the firefight, who quoted him as shouting "Cease fire! Friendlies!" with his last breaths. Army records show Tillman fought bravely during his final battle. He followed orders, never wavered and at one stage proposed discarding his heavy body armor, apparently because he wanted to charge a distant ridge occupied by the enemy, an idea his immediate superior rejected, witness statements show. But the Army's published account not only withheld all evidence of fratricide, but it exaggerated Tillman's role and stripped his actions of their context. Tillman was not one of the senior commanders on the scene -- he directed only himself, one other Ranger and an Afghan militiaman, under supervision from others. And witness statements in the Army's files at the time of the press release describe Tillman's voice ringing out on the battlefield mainly in a desperate effort, joined by other Rangers on his ridge, to warn comrades to stop shooting at their own men. The Army's April 30 press release was just one episode in a broader Army effort to manage the uncomfortable facts of Pat Tillman's death, according to internal records and interviews. During several weeks of memorials and commemorations that followed Tillman's death, commanders at his 75th Ranger Regiment and their superiors hid the truth about friendly fire from Tillman's brother Kevin, who had fought with Pat in the same platoon, but was not involved in the firing incident and did not know the cause of his brother's death. Commanders also withheld the facts from Tillman's widow, his parents, national politicians and the public, according to records and interviews with sources involved in the case. On May 3, Ranger and Army officers joined hundreds of mourners at a public ceremony in San Jose, Calif., where Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Denver Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer and Maria Shriver took the podium to remember Tillman. The visiting officers gave no hint of the evidence investigators had collected in Afghanistan. In a telephone interview, McCain said: "I think it would have been helpful to have at least their suspicions known" before he spoke about Tillman's death in public. Even more, he said, "the family deserved some kind of heads-up that there would be questions." McCain said yesterday that questions raised by Mary Tillman, Pat's mother, about how the Army handled the case led him to meet twice earlier this fall with Army officers and former acting Army secretary Les Brownlee to seek answers. About a month ago, McCain said, Brownlee told him that the Pentagon would reopen its investigation. McCain said that he was not certain about the scope of the new investigation but that he believed it is continuing. A Pentagon official confirmed that an investigation is underway, but Army spokesmen declined to comment further. When she first learned that friendly fire had taken her son's life, "I was upset about it, but I thought, 'Well, accidents happen,' " Mary Tillman said in a telephone interview Sunday. "Then when I found out that it was because of huge negligence at places along the way -- you have time to process that and you really get annoyed."

This was a deliberate Pentagon deception. It was undertaken to manage public perception of the war in general and to cover their own ass in particular. It has backfired on them and given the brass a black eye. The real issue is how to prevent this type of thing from recurring. No one in America wants to view our troops in disarray, killing their brothers in arms. It's tragic. But how to remedy this situation?