Don't forget the murder of John P. Wheeler

[Peace Patriot]

John P. Wheeler, a high-placed Air Force and Defense Department consultant who was recently murdered and whose killer or killers are still at large, was a man with a passionate commitment to all of us NOT FORGETTING. He was the force behind the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington on which is inscribed the name of every U.S. soldier killed in Vietnam. Whatever your politics, whatever your opinions about the Vietnam War or any U.S. war, one thing that honorable people do is to NEVER FORGET those who died and never take lightly the political/government decisions that lead to war. John P. Wheeler was such a man. He did not take war lightly. He was devoted to REMEMBERING.

Wheeler was working for the Mitre Corporation, which is at the center of Defense Department high technology--including protection of our air space, high tech surveillance and drone targeting technology--and which was partnered with Ptech, a corporation run by Saudi businessmen with ties to Osama bin Laden. The Bush government actively suppressed news coverage about Ptech.

Wheeler apparently spent several days possibly misdirecting friends and family as to where he was going and what he was doing and he ended up seen on a parking garage surveillance tape on December 30, looking disheveled and disoriented. He was murdered that night and his body found at a landfill the next morning. The police have declared it a murder but no cause of death has been disclosed.

I feel that there is enough weirdness around his murder to warrant a full scale investigation by SOMEONE. I don't trust our government agencies in this case, so the least we can do, it seems to me, is to keep a spotlight on this investigation, so that, if something is being covered up, it is not made easy.

The horror in Arizona has pushed this murder investigation out of the headlines. This is not only a disservice to the man whose passion was REMEMBERING those who died in war, it makes it easier for his murderer or murderers to get away with their crime, especially if it was an inside job. I have even entertained the notion that the horror in Arizona was intended to do just this--take the spotlight off of Wheeler's murder. Wheeler's murder has a feel about it of an assassination hit gone wrong (how he ended up walking around in a dazed and confused state hours before he was finally murdered and his body placed in a dumpster). It may be that too much was coming out about his murder, because of what went wrong with the hit, that attention had to be diverted. There is a very odd news report in this regard of someone on the Wilmington City Council objecting to the local police spending too much time on Wheeler's murder. There was another news report about the police pulling up floorboards in Wheeler's kitchen. And the whole story of his last days on this earth, which was coming out in bits and pieces, is very strange, indeed.

I haven't reached any conclusions about Arizona being a diversion or about his murder in general. No conclusions are possible at this point. And it is still possible that this was a privately motivated murder, unrelated to his work at Mitre or other Defense Department work. It just worries me that information about it is drying up and the corpo-fascist news spotlight--for whatever that is worth--is off.

Here is the thread where I and others had started to compile information about Wheeler's murder, shortly before the Arizona shootings. I ask you to help us all not forget John P. Wheeler. Remember him, as he helped us remember others. Help keep the spotlight ON in whatever way you can.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x134679

:patriot: :grouphug: :patriot:

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[Ozymanithrax]

2. Arizona being a diversion?

Oh, please.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. so let me get this straight

The powers that be activated the Manchurian Candidate to distract us from this?

OH PLEASE!

[Peace Patriot]

10. Yeah, I think that's possible. I also think it's possible that malevolent forces,

likely intimately connected to our "military-industrial complex," have "Manchurian candidates" primed to destroy civil society in the U.S. That could be another--and a different--motive for the Arizona shootings. I think it's possible, too, that the Arizona shooter was just nuts--a lone individual, who perhaps went off the deep end due to rightwing hate propaganda and items like Palin's "target" list. And I think it's possible that Wheeler's murder was a privately motivated murder.

All of these things are possible. What we have to try to do, in judging events in this "Alice on Wonderland" country of ours, is determine probabilities and try to put the pieces of the puzzle, of various events, together for ourselves, because the corpo-fascist media is not going to help us. We have already seen the Associated Pukes try to generalize rightwing hate speech to "both sides." I just read that in my morning newspaper. We cannot trust news organizations that would use journalism in such a dishonorable fashion. And it is my judgement that our corpo-fascist press does this all the time--distorts, lies, propagandizes and covers up the truth.

So we are on our own, as a People, in trying to figure out what those who rule over us are doing. We have no "free press." This can lead to far-out "conspiracy theories"--things that are not possible or are without foundation--it's true. But I think the benefits of "going too far" in your thinking about political/government events far outweigh the risks of being wrong or of losing touch with hard facts and with what is truly possible.

Let me give you an example. Our vote counting system, nationwide, is now run largely (80%) owned by one, private, far rightwing corporation, ES&S, which just bought out Diebold. ES&S's initial funder and major investor was a far rightwing, reclusive billionaire, Howard Ahmanson, who also gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals (among other things). These are the sort of people who are now 'counting' virtually every vote in our country, with machines run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, and with virtually no audit/recount controls.

How much have you heard about this from the corpo-fascist press? If they were a valid, functioning "Fifth Estate," they would be screaming the alarm about this far rightwing corporate takeover of the very counting of our votes.

Nada. Nothing. Silence.

We can sometimes count on the corpo-fascist press for bits and pieces of information, with even the bits and pieces sometimes drying up--as they are doing on the Wheeler murder investigation--but we cannot count on them for putting the pieces together, especially if the story touches upon fundamental elements of the power structure and its methods of control.

It's also my experience that people who DON'T think things this through, and whose prejudices blind them to difficult truths, often throw the shibboleth "conspiracy theory" at an idea that seems too far out to them, in order not to think about it. They don't analyze what has been said. They just fuzz their own minds, and other's minds, with the buzz phrase "conspiracy theory."

I admit that Arizona as a "distraction" is edgy. But I stand by it as a possibility. There is no evidence for it. It is not fact-based. It is just a guess. Could be a coincidence that some young man just happened to go blooey over rightwing hatreds and created large-scale mayhem and bloodshed, filling all the airwaves, just as Wheeler's murder was hitting the newsstream. Or may it is not a coincidence. I don't know. But I think it is a useful idea as to expanding our focus on Wheeler's murder. Those who could pull off a hit on such a high-placed and respected Defense Department figure could ALSO be manipulating the news about it, including mounting a distraction.

I think you need to read up a bit about Mitre and Ptech before you jump to the conclusion that I am an airhead "conspiracy theorist."

[davidinalameda]

17. bet he belives that aliens built the pyramids too

:tinfoilhat:

[Rex]

4. He was the person behind the VWM?

HOLY FUCKING SHIT DAM SON OF A BITCH FUCKERS AAAAAAH...

Mad doesn't desribe the feeling, it is like getting kicked in the gut repeatedly!

:cry:

[Peace Patriot]

13. Yes, he was. It was his idea and he is the one who carried it through. He got it built.

And about the most dishonorable thing we could do, toward this man who was into remembering and whose body ended up as landfill, is FORGET HIM--and let the corpo-fascist newsstream FORGET his UNSOLVED murder.

We don't even know the official cause of death yet, though the police have said that he was murdered. It has been pushed out of the "news" by the Arizona shootings.

Frankly, the next thing I expect to hear--if we hear anything further at all--is that the police have "revised" their opinion that it was murder, and that John Wheeler shot himself and stuffed his own body into a dumpster.

Alice. In. Wonderland. That's what's we're in the middle of.

[pinboy3niner]

22. It was Jan Scruggs' idea, but Wheeler was key to making it happen

Scruggs, a former Infantry rifleman, got the idea of creating a memorial while sipping whiskley at his kitchen table one night. Wheeler and another lawyer, Bob Doubek, brought to the project the connections, political smarts, legal epertise, and fund-raising and organizational abililty that were crucial to making the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial a reality.

Also key was a woman, Maya Lin, whose brilliant design for The Wall was selected from all of the entries submitted to a design competition.

Scruggs tells the story of the creation of the memorial in his book, 'To Heal a Nation' (written with Joel Swerdlow).

A 2002 article by Bernard Edelman in the Veteran, the national publication of Vietnam Veterans of America, also addresses Jack Wheeler's role:

When Jack Wheeler first heard of the dream, he instinctively knew that it was a really strong idea. "It can be done" he told Scruggs. "Let me call some people." What was needed, he knew, was the commitment of "guys who had served in Vietnam who were in positions of influence."

He was a graduate of West Point, Yale Law School, and Harvard Business School. Although he had established a memorial at West Point to those who had served in Southeast Asia-"It was a good practice drill for the national memorial," he says-Wheeler was disturbed by the national amnesia over the Vietnam War. "We wanted to show the integrity of our experience,' he says. "And we, a group of rookies, got together, raised the money, ran the design competition, built the memorial, and gave it to the country."

Wheeler, who served as chairman of the VVMF's board of directors, is widely credited for his political savvy and managerial know how. "He was the lead tank," says Tom Shull, a White House aide who worked closely with him. "He made extraordinary personal sacrifices" to realize the dream.

Wheeler went on to design the model for the Vietnam Veterans Leadership Program and became the first director of the VVLP in the Reagan administration. He wrote the book, Touched with Fire: The Future of the Vietnam Generation. He currently serves as president of the Vietnam Children's Fund and uses his expertise to turn around troubled charities.

To Realize A Dream, Many Lent Their Skills, Time, And Commitment
http://www.vva.org/archive/TheVeteran/2002_special/dream.htm

Edited to add: I neglected to mention that Scruggs' story of the memorial was also made into a television movie, To Heal a Nation (1988), starring Eric Roberts as Scruggs, Marshall Colt as Wheeler, Scott Paulin as Bob Doubek, and Tamlyn Tomita as Maya Lin.

[davidinalameda]

5. not only did you drink the kool-aid

but you ate the worm in the bottom of the glass

and stopped by the side of the road to eat some magic mushrooms in addition to smoking a big ass bowl of crack

[Peace Patriot]

11. Please see my reply to nadinbrzezinski, above, about "conspiracy theories."

I have not drunk anybody's kool-aid. I don't do hallucinogenic substances. I don't even do alcohol. I am perfectly sober. And I have only proposed Arizona as a "distraction" as one possibility--and that possibility largely depends on who killed John P. Wheeler and why. If it was an inside, "states secrets" hit, then, yes, I think manipulation of the newsstream is definitely another power of those who may have killed him, and activating other hit men--such as the one in Arizona--as a distraction wouldn't phase their consciences. They have the power to do it, and they would not hesitate to do it, if they thought they needed to, to keep their "state secrets" secret, and to help cover the tracks of yet another assassination.

[JDPriestly]

6. Had never heard of the Mitre Corp.

Here is their link.

http://mitre.org/

[emilyg]

7. kick

[JDPriestly]

8. The conspiracy information is just too much for me to understand,

but the Wheeler story is certainly interesting and one which we should try to follow.

It could just be an ordinary illness or a mugging or something more. There is too little information to determine what happened. We will probably never know.

[Peace Patriot]

14. Let me ask you this...

Say the worst is true. Say that John Wheeler, a truly patriotic man--not a phony patriot--got hold of some info on Ptech (a Mitre partner) that implicated someone at Mitre, or in the Defense Department or Bush Junta principles, in 9/11. That is one kind of information that he could well have been in a position to obtain. He was right at the heart of aviation surveillance and air space protection technology.

And say whoever he had the goods on arranged for him to be assassinated, possibly as the conclusion to interrogating and even torturing him (and very likely drugging him) (--how he ended up disheveled and disoriented in a parking garage). And say something went wrong with this plan. He somehow got free and was out on the street (soon to be hunted down, killed and his body thrown into a dumpster--just after the parking garage videotape footage). Details about all this--including the parking lot video--were just hitting the airwaves, before the Arizona shootings. A botched and messy assassination was getting too much coverage. The local police had already called it a murder. Reporters were crawling all over it, including some enterprising reporter who got a look at the police tape and torn up floorboards in Wheeler's kitchen. The local police are being too vigilant and so some bought-and-paid-for rightwing operative on the Wilmington City Council is activated to demand that they back off--that they're "spending too much time on Wheeler's murder." Meanwhile, a BIG distraction is needed....and they've got one all set up, with the rightwing hate scene in Arizona, an open, trusting congresswoman, and a whacko young skinhead ready to be activated.

It is POSSIBLE. And IF the motive behind Wheeler's murder was "state secrets" of a dire kind--IF it was an insider hit--it is not only possible, it makes sense--from the point of view of such conspirators. Manipulation of the newsstream has been their thing all along. It is one of their chief controls over the U.S. population, which has consistently opposed unjust war yet has found itself engaged in unjust war time and again. We MUST be kept in the dark about the worst things that are going on behind the scenes in our ruined democracy. "False flag" operations part of the toolkit of secret ops. And if you can "kill two birds with one stone"--help further destroy civil society in the U.S. AND distract from something else--from a critical operation gone wrong--all the better.

You know, I think it's really time we all GROW UP, as to the state of our democracy and our country, and as to the powers of those who are calling the shots. They've got us all in "short attention span" mode. Have we forgotten how they got us into yet another unjust war? Have we forgotten the lies they told? Have we already forgotten the loss of our civil rights, the surveillance, the torture and all of the rampant lawlessness of the Bush Junta? Have we forgotten how they looted us blind? Have we forgotten how the media behaved during all of this? Do we think that people who can hijack our government and our military in that way don't have the power to continue manipulating events and to put another of their idiot tools back in the White House, to go with their idiot Congress?

We need to stop throwing "conspiracy theory" buzz words at each other and start thinking and remembering. How did this all come about? What are its methods? And what pieces of it are connected to other pieces?

For someone as high up as Wheeler to get hit--if that's what happened, if it was an inside job--it COULD WELL be connected to other events, including Arizona. Why not entertain that thought? Why dismiss it out of hand--when it could well be the "elephant in the room" in these current circumstances? The thing being hidden. It is not outlandish to suggest that, given all the other utterly outlandish things that have occurred. Bush Jr as president, appointed by the Supreme Court. I mean, come on. Jog your memory. And try to think as big as those who hijacked our country and are clearly planning to do that again. It's already begun, with this Puke/Diebold-ES&S Congress.

[JDPriestly]

21. Well, you seem to be a person who is curious but who doesn't

jump to firm conclusions but rather considers lots of possibilities. We shall see whether there is anything behind this.

Wheeler could also have simply had a stroke or become ill.

Also, he could have met up with street robbers.

But your explanations are also a possibility. I don't think we have enough facts.

It is very strange that this man who had so many important connections ends up dead and in a dumpster.

[Peace Patriot]

15. Specifically on your points "ordinary illness" or "mugging"--how did his body get into the dumpster

and end up as landfill?

Street criminals don't generally bother to stuff their victims into dumpsters. They just flee, with whatever goods they can steal. And who would take the body of someone who died of illness and put it in a dumpster?

Yes, he looks like he might be ill (but looks more like he's been drugged) when we see him the video. But soon after that, he is dead, and the next morning his body is found in a dump truck as it dumps its load into a landfill.

"Ordinary illness" or "mugging" simply do not explain these facts. It COULD BE an odd and highly unusual combination of events--he got ill, he got mugged, his muggers were diabolical killers and, after mugging him, stalked him all over the area, killed him and stuffed his body into a dumpster for no reason at all. And he meanwhile--before these unusual muggers got after him--at every stop he made, in five different locations, talks to people who see that he is in some kind of trouble and offer help--to call a cab, to call the cops--and he REFUSES their help.

All of this COULD BE the result of something other than an assassination--but what is the most likely scenario, especially given WHO HE IS--a very highly placed Air Force and Pentagon consultant, right smack in the middle of the most secretive government operations? Is the most likely scenario that muggers stalked him all over the area, to kill him, after mugging him--and then went to all the trouble to get rid of his body? Or that he was in some kind of nightmare of illness/stroke, brought on by a first mugging, then, in his disabled state, suffered a second mugging and murder, with the murderers getting rid of his body? Or is the most likely scenario that this was a "states secrets" assassination?

As to the latter--which I think the much more plausible scenario--possibly he was drugged and interrogated and something went wrong (who knows? maybe one of the assassins was a vet, recognized him and got a conscience), he got free, but couldn't remember what happened. The last thing he had been doing was going to get his car, so that's what he proceeds with--and while he's wandering around, in a disheveled and disoriented state, in the wrong parking lot--his assassins re-group, find him, kill him and dump his body. The key to this scenario may be what he was doing in the two days before he was killed. He wasn't where he was supposed to be and was possibly misdirecting friends and family about this. Why was he still in Wilmington when he was supposed to be on a train to New York?

The known facts pretty much rule out an ordinary mugging. Illness? His first stop was a pharmacy. But he didn't ask for medical help, and he refused the pharmacist's offer of calling him a cab. Then he goes off looking for his car--goes to the wrong parking garage. Yeah, stroke could explain his not remembering where his car is, but how does he end up as landfill? Without knowing the cause of death--which hasn't yet been released--we can't know for sure that he didn't, on his own, crawl into a dumpster--the very fate that he wanted to spare the bodies of the 55,000+ U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam. But the police have already designated it a murder, so we have to presume that some fatal injury was inflicted on him. Who would go to all that trouble?

[Bold Lib]

9. k and r

[EmeraldCityGrl]

12. K&R

[eleny]

16. All I know is that the guy I trust in this event is the Sheriff Dupnik who spoke out

Given the history of manipulation, diversion and cover ups during other political assassinations I'm keeping an open mind about such speculation.

Too many people disappear or die unexpectedly over time and who knows why. Keeping Wheeler's death in the news is laudable. He was just too high profile an individual to be forgotten.

[Peace Patriot]

20. I have a lot of respect for Sheriff Dupnik, too. It took a lot of courage for him to speak the truth

about rightwing TV/radio and political campaigns promoting hatred and violence.

However, it may not be possible for local law enforcement to follow leads out of their jurisdiction. The FBI has already taken custody of the suspected shooter and has taken over the case. And, after following the FBI on a number of cases, I just don't trust them. I think there are at least some elements of the FBI who are quite willing to lie, cheat, invent evidence and cover up crimes of powerful criminals. So, if there are powerful criminals behind this shooter, it will likely be impossible for Sheriff Dupnik to know it. This may have been a much more sophisticated incident than it appears to be and the trail may be disappearing as we speak, in FBI hands.

As to "sophisticated incident," one thing that I think is very possible is that this incident was intended to combine with other operations to destroy civil society in the U.S. Just think of what Colombine did. We now have weapons scanners in public schools! Not to mention in county courthouses and all the places we gather to participate in civil society. I just read an article about Fortress DC. You can't even walk up the steps to the Supreme Court any more. Our capital is in permanent lockdown. And, with horrors like this one in Arizona, permanent lockdown is going to extend to every public space. There is A LOT of money in it, and it is also very useful to those who don't believe in democracy.

Think about how organized crime gangs soften up neighborhoods--a few "random acts" of violence, and then they come in offering "protection." Our "terrorist" profiteers may be working in much the same way--to extort more billions of OUR tax dollars to restrict OUR freedoms and to bring down the Big Boot if we get too uppity. Look at the packed prisons already! Look at what we're living with already! Not enough for the greedbags--they want MORE high-end, billion dollar "security" contracts (Mitre being one of the biggest players in this field). And this suits the far rightwing billionaires--like the Koch Brothers (the ones behind the "Tea Party") and like Howard Ahmanson (the far rightwing billionaire behind our 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines)--and other such destroyers of our democracy very well, indeed. They want us afraid. They want us restricted. They want us to be without rights. They want government and its corporate ties to exist under a veil of secrecy--even to the very counting of our votes. They need slaves and cannon fodder to achieve their designs of world domination over resources, labor markets and governments--and this bastion of democratic traditions, and of middle-class prosperity-- the U.S. of A.--is the country they most need to keep control of and to subdue, and it is also the trickiest one of all to control and subdue, because it is so vast and so diverse. How can we be controlled and subdued? By FEAR. How can we be looted and impoverished? By FEAR. How can we be "divided and conquered"? By FEAR. How can we be most easily propagandized and brainwashed? By FEAR.

It is not outlandish at all to posit that Arizona is part of a PLAN to inflict the final blows on our democracy, and to wonder if this utterly incoherent shooter--if his Facebook posts are actually his--was programmed to do what he did, and had very sophisticated handlers who vanished into the shadows. It might not be something that a county sheriff could compass--even a smart one--and it's already out of his hands.

I'm not saying that this the case. I'm saying that it is possible. Arizona could be part of a PLAN. And the same with John Wheeler's murder. IF the Arizona murders are part of a plan, could that plan be related to covering up who murdered Wheeler and why (--as a distraction or possibly in some other respect)?

I think these are reasonable questions in the La-La-Land that our country has become. I think we need to focus our attention in this way--on the bigger picture--ultimately to figure out what strategy is best, for us as citizens, to get our country back. This is NOT the country I grew up in, I'll tell you that. It is an unrecognizable place--that seems to be a replication of the Red Queen's kingdom in "Alice in Wonderland." How do we get out of this "rabbit hole"? How do we reclaim our democratic heritage and restore the "common good" that we were once, as a People, devoted to?

We can't do it by closing our eyes to the bigger manipulations that are going on, even if they are hard to see. We have to try to see and understand what is really going on, even at the risk of being called "conspiracy theorists." We have to REMEMBER--as John Wheeler was so devoted to doing--and not let important things pass into the "river of forgetfulness" that our 'news' media has become. We need to investigate and also imagine our way into the secrets that our true rulers are hiding from us, in their efforts to manipulate and propagandize us. This is not an easy tyranny to understand. It is like an octopus. There is not one "dictator" or junta to point to. It is a much cleverer tyranny and one that I don't think stops at our borders.

I have to laugh at all the fuss about our borders, when a group of Saudi businessmen with ties to Osama bin Laden--at Ptech, Mitre's partner--were running the airspace software on 9/11! Where did we see THAT in the corpo-fascist newsstream? It was suppressed. Read the story at Indira Singh's web site. Saudis! So how many other multinational corporations, with no loyalty to this country and its people, and certainly absolutely no interest in democracy, are actually calling the shots here, with octopus arms in every major system-media, defense, finance, voting machines, high tech surveillance, public works, emergency services, tax collection, prisons, and every government function? It is mystifying and scary to think about. But we need to think about it. How can we regain sovereign control of our country? How can we restore government "of, by and for" the people, in these circumstances, when even the very counting of our votes has been privatized and turned into a 'TRADE SECRET"? And how can we do this--save our democracy--peacefully and safely?

We've got to start by understanding what we are up against, and not blinding ourselves to it, out of fear.

[treestar]

18. That one is a big mystery so far

Very odd facts.

[Peace Patriot]

19. Yeah, that's my take on it, too. Much too odd to be ignored.

I will tell you, I had NO IDEA who the Mitre Corporation was, until this man was murdered. But, boy, does their corporate profile ring alarm bells! The Indira Singh information on Mitre's partner Ptech--and what became of it--alone gives much reason to be suspicious about this murder, but there is much else. Mitre is really the heart of the "military-industrial complex" in its present high tech manifestations.

Put THAT together with the very odd circumstances of his murder and you really wish that you could trust the FBI (which I do not).

I am also quite staggered by what ELSE John Wheeler did--the Vietnam War Memorial, and all the charities he was involved in. I may not agree, politically, with a military man who worked high up in the Bush Junta. I doubt we could have had a peaceful dinner together, without a rip-roaring political argument. But I ALSO recognize that there are honorable and good people working in the military, even some of the higher ups. You can't have followed the story of the military jag lawyers who tried to stop the torture, at the risk of their lives and careers, and not acknowledge the truth of this. I strongly suspect that he is one of these--an honest patriot --and he most certainly deserves a full and clean investigation of his murder.