Wayne Madsen on Captain Frueh & Master Sgt. Melvin Peele Sept. 14-16, 2007 -- UPDATED -- The suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a US Air Force Special Operations Command officer publication date: Sep 14, 2007
Sept. 14-16, 2007 -- UPDATED -- The suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a US Air Force Special Operations Command officer
We live in dangerous times. With fascism comes to inevitability of extra-judicial murders being carried out by the government. The "disappeared" of Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia in Henry Kissinger's "Operation Condor" are a bloody testament to extra-judicial killings. And the names Tillman, Westhusing, Kokal, Weiss, and others are now joined by Sergeants Omar Mora and Yance Gray, two authors of an August 18, 2007, New York Times op-ed opposing the Iraq war who were recently killed in a vehicle "accident" in Iraq. Staff Sergeant Jeremy Murphy, another author of the anti-war article, was shot in the head in Iraq while the article was being written. Murphy is recovering from his wounds in a U.S. military hospital.
When the body of Air Force Captain John Frueh was found near his rental car near Badger Peak in northeast Skamania County, Washington on September 8, questions began to be asked. Frueh was assigned to “Operations Weather” for the Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field in Florida. Hurlburt is the headquarters for the Air Force's special forces activities. Frueh was a veteran of special forces combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. He had flown to Portland, Oregon to attend his best friend's September 2 wedding. Frueh was to have returned to Florida on September 4.
No cause of death was given by the authorities. Frueh had flown to Portland on August 25 to attend his friend's wedding. According to The Oregonian, Frueh had last spoken to his family in Florida on August 30 after renting a car at Portland International Airport. Frueh was 33, married, and a father of two young children.
Why would Frueh driven a long distance from Portland to Washington? Frueh was last seen on August 29 going for a walk in Nob Hill, in northwest Portland. He was carrying in his backpack a camcorder, Global Positioning System (GPS), camera, and cell phone. According to the Portland Police, the last call from Frueh's cell phone was at 12:29 pm on August 29 from the intersection of I-205 and S.E. Mill Plain Road in Vancouver, Washington, ironically, close to a Search and Rescue facility.
There is also the question as to how Frueh traveled to a stop off of the interstate highway in Vancouver, Washington on August 29 if he did not rent his car at Portland International until the next day, August 30, the same day his family in Florida last heard from him by phone. Considering Frueh's last cell phone call was on August 29 from Vancouver, why did he presumably use a pay phone to call his family in Florida?
Frueh's last reported phone call at Portland airport came on the same day, August 30, that five or six nuclear weapons aboard a B-52 supposedly went "missing" during a flight from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. Frueh's position in the headquarters of the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command "weather operations" would have given him access to a highly classified information.
Suicide in this case appears highly unlikely. Frueh had recently been selected for Major. He was attending his best friend's wedding and he had a wife and two children.
Police in Washington state immediately ruled out foul play in Frueh's death. A report was floated that he suffered from a "medical condition."
There is something definitely amiss in the U.S. armed forces. George Bush's lickspittle general, David Petreaus, reportedly harbors presidential ambitions. Admiral William Fallon, Petraeus' boss as the Commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) is quoted as saying Petraeus is "an ass-kissing little chickenshit," adding "I hate people like that."
It is noteworthy that Fallon was not asked to testify before Congress about Iraq. Every faltering dictatorship experiences internecine feuds within the military. It was true with Czarist Russia, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Colonels' Greece. It is also true with the United States.
UPDATE 9/14/07 -- Captain Frueh was not the only suspicious Air Force death in recent weeks. KXMC-TV in Minot, North Dakota has reported that 20 year old Airman First Class Todd Blue died on September 10 while visiting his family in Wytheville, Virginia. Blue was assigned to the 5th Security Forces at Minot Air Force Base last August. Authorities have not released details on Blue's death. Lt. Col. Paul Wheeless, the commander of the 5th Security Forces Munitions Squadron was fired over the recent "loss" of five or six nuclear-armed cruise missiles loaded at Minot aboard a B-52 destined for Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered a clamp down on any information about the B-52 incident being disseminated to the press. However, what we now know about the nuclear weapons "incident" and two suspicious Air Force deaths within the continental United States, coupled with the feud between General Petraeus and Admiral Fallon, all point to something seriously wrong within the ranks of the military.
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This next piece is really strange. What is a forklift doing in a servicemen's parking lot? It's hard to not hear or see a forklift, and military forklifts are all supposed to be loaded dwon with safety devices? Explanation needed.
Sept. 16, 2007 -- Another strange Air Force death
Master Sgt. Melvin Peele, assigned to the 612th Air Communications Squadron of the 12th Air Force at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, outside Tucson, Arizona, was struck and killed by a forklift September 12, while he was walking with his wife to his car. Peele and his wife, Master Sgt. Lisa Peele, were struck by the forklift while walking across a parking lot at the James H. Doolittle Combined Air Operations Center on base. Arizona media outlets reported two ages for Master Sgt. Melvin Peele, 38 and 50.
Peele's wife was released from the hospital in the evening of September 12. Peele was a native of Baltimore. Air Force officials have not released details of the incident but say that an investigation is taking place.
Peele's wife was assigned to the 355th Mission Support Squadron, which supports the A-10 fighter squadron at the base. On September 13 and 14, the squadron was grounded as part of the Air Force-wide stand-down after the August 30 B-52 nuclear weapons incident between Minot and Barksdale air force bases.
Peele's unusual death follows those of Air Force Captain John Frueh, a member of the Air Force Special Operations Command's "Operations Weather," disappeared from Portland, Oregon sometime after August 30. Frueh's body was found near his rental car some distance from Portland in Washington state on September 8. Airman First Class Todd Blue, assigned to the 5th Security Forces at Minot Air Force Base, died while on leave in Virginia on September 10.
WMR has learned from a knowledgeable U.S. government source that the disappearance of famed aviator Steve Fossett, whose plane disappeared over Nevada on September 3, is linked to the case involving the 2nd Bomb Wing B-52 that "mistakenly" flew six nuclear weapons on advanced cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. According to the source, critical Air Force elements assigned to investigating the B-52 incident were diverted to Nevada to take part in the as yet unsuccessful search for Fossett's aircraft.