CThru.com Presents Tony Ward

www.BobShellTruth.com

…..I first met Bob Shell at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York city while attending a Photography Expo at the Jacob Javits Center back in 1995. At the time, Bob was the editor in chief of Shutterbug, one of the largest photography publications in America. We were introduced at the convention by a mutual friend, Reiko Ikeda a representative of MegaPress, a photography syndication group based in Tokyo. I was represented by Miss Ikeda as was Bob, so the three of us decided to meet back at Bob’s hotel after various convention activities to meet for drinks and dinner. I also asked Bob to review a portfolio of photographs that I brought along with hopes that Bob would review the pictures for an editorial he would later publish in Shutterbug magazine.

After that initial meeting in New York, Bob and I became friends. He lived and worked in Radford, Virginia, so we spent most of our time, over many years communicating by phone about photography and related matters. A regular part of our conversation centered around the use of various cameras and lighting techniques each of us employed when working with models.

There was a particular model that Bob mentioned quite often, her name was Marion Franklin. They developed a friendship and eventually became lovers. Ms. Franklin enjoyed being photographed by Bob and enjoyed modeling for him on numerous occasions. She apparently was a big fan of my book Obsessions, a result of Bob’s earlier recommendation to find a book publisher. We talked often about making a trip down to Radford to photograph Marion, as well as other models that Bob frequently worked with in the Radford area.

That trip was never meant to be. On June 3, 2003, Marion died during a photo shoot at Bob’s studio. He was later prosecuted, and convicted in September of 2007. He is presently serving a 32 year sentence for involuntary manslaughter and other charges.

Bob And Marion

Bob and I communicated numerous times after Marion’s death. He explained the tragic events of that fateful day and implored his innocence of the charges levied by his claims of an overzealous prosecutor who won conviction by jury trial on September 3, 2007.

MARION FRANKLIN BY BOB SHELL

After Bob’s conviction, I lost track of him for a while. I scoured the internet trying to figure out where he was sent to serve his sentence. A year passed and then a couple of things happened in the fall of 2008. I received an email from a friend of Bob’s, who also believes that he was wrongfully convicted. I was contacted because Bob had been asking about me and sought my help. I responded in kind, still believing in his innocence, I conferred with several of my attorney friends for advise and a course of action to have Bob’s case reopened.

At around the same time, I became friends with a renowned private investigator who has since offered support in having a closer look at Bob’s case. We have already uncovered various problems with the prosecutions case, especially in the area of mitigation and will keep readers informed of our course of action over the coming months. The habeas corpus clock is ticking for Bob. He has already exercised most of his standard appeals. Short of clemency from the governor of Virginia or a new trial, Bob is imprisoned for life unless someone that believes in his innocence takes action. To learn more about Bob’s case log on to www.bobshelltruth.com. TW

America: Stop These Wars

Posted By John Grant

Will President Obama cave-in to the generals?

General Stanley McChrystal was appointed commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan due to his leadership in Anbar Province in Iraq, where he was given credit for the success of “the surge.” The propaganda had it that additional troops led to the success of the surge in Iraq. But as people like Bob Woodward have pointed out, that is not the way it really happened. Woodward attributed it to a “secret weapon” he would not reveal. It turns out that secret weapon was General McChrystal’s Special Operations Command, which included highly secret units that captured or assassinated people who were labeled ”irreconcilables,” the current buzzword in Petraeus counter-insurgency doctrine for people who refuse to go along with our program — ie. those who would not accept the $300 a month paid to insurgents to play ball with us. Those captured were sent to a highly secret unit in Baghdad designated by numbers that constantly changed to avoid accountability and staffed by soldiers in civilian clothes with beards, no ranks and using only fictitious first names — all designed to make tracking and accountability difficult or impossible. (This was all reported in an Esquire magazine article several years ago.) In fact, a Navy investigator was tasked to investigate charges of torture by this unit and the investigator threw up his hands and gave up because of the fictitious names and the rest. McChrystal assured his men that the Red Cross would never set foot in the unit, and it never did. Allegations of abuse and torture were reported in the Esquire article — as were tales of innocent people being run through the whole process.

None of this was even hinted at during the Senate confirmation hearing for General McChrystal. He was rubber-stamped through, we were told, because he was so desperately needed in Afghanistan, where we were basically losing the game. It was very clear that McChrystal was named commander to bring this “secret weapon” to the challenge in Afghanistan. Soldiers in these special ops units were to serve for something like five years with periods of 90 days or so in country, then some down time back in the US for rest and training; then, it was back to the front and so on. The point was to establish a long-term commitment to the war effort. The reporters have likely only broken the surface of this secret tactical program that is so critical to the larger, long-term counter-insurgency effort in Afghanistan, which entails ground troops and a host of civil affairs and development tasks.  McChrystal is a very cool, smooth customer able to keep secret what he must and present a good face for the propaganda when that is needed. He likes to talk about having “humility” and about how our new task is to “protect the people.” Of course, the Taliban employ the same propaganda notion that they also are about “protecting the people” — from us. As is usually the case in such wars, the population is stuck in the middle receiving the brunt of the violence. The unavoidable challenge is that the Taliban are Pashtuns and they have lived in this very rugged terrain using Islam as a disciplinary ideology for centuries — and they don’t like outsiders. As a Vietnamese officer said to Robert McNamara years after our war there, “We knew you would eventually leave, because you could leave. We lived there and could not leave.” 

As Keith Olberman pointed out eloquently in a Special Comment Monday night, “Mister President, we cannot afford this war.”  Afghans see us as occupiers, and that won’t change. He spoke of “making our troops suffer to make our generals happy.” He mentioned the Pat Tillman case, where General McChrystal ”was willing to stand truth on its head” and pass bald-faced lies to the press and the American people. Why should we trust this man? Olberman wanted to know. “The Pentagon is in the war business!” Olberman cried — so of course they are pushing for more war. We elected an adult, civilian commander-in-chief to represent us, the hard-working, reasonable citizens of this nation, and to tell the generals “No” — as John Kennedy did vis-a-vis General Curtis LeMay and others who wanted to invade during the Cuban Crisis and as Kennedy did in being reluctant to follow McNamara’s call to escalate in Vietnam. (I’ll leave for another time any speculation about what happened to Kennedy in the end.)  

We can’t afford this war because it costs $1 million to support one soldier for a year in Afghanistan. It costs over $1 million for an MRAP truck designed to be destroyed as it protects our soldiers when they hit an IED. It costs $400 for each gallon of gasoline needed to run the MRAPs at something like 5 MPG. Now we learn the Taliban are getting stronger in the north where we thought things were calm and we had a clean route to get supplies in via Uzbekistan. We learn they are becoming more sophisticated in attacking us; that is, they are learning more about us and, as happens over time in wars like this, they will develop new strategies and tactics to attack our young soldiers. Our military is now stretched to the crisis level, with families suffering under multiple deployments, PTSD and record-high suicides. Wall Street has been bailed out, but unemployment across the nation is at unacceptable levels and we’re being told we don’t have the resources to create jobs to do things like maintain our crumbling Infrastructure.  Food stamps are now being distributed in the US at unprecedented levels and growing. Health care is an insult to common decency.  Fear of everything is on the rise. The list of domestic dysfunction goes on.  

We need to recognize the empire is showing signs of strain, and we need to find a better way fro the good of Americans here at home.  Let’s hope President Obama can figure that out before it’s too late.