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Comment by adventured | Hacker News Reader

His life was repeatedly threatened. What conspiracy?

If a dozen people threaten to kill you over five years, and you die in an even remotely suspicious manner, where's the conspiracy in that? There's a line of people that apparently would have liked to kill Hastings.

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Even being pedantic, that would be a conspiracy... now, does that mean it's the kind of conspiracy theory that belongs on David Icke forums or InfoWars? Maybe not, but right now there is no logical consistency behind the theory that he was killed in a hit given the time, place and manner it occurred.

His death should be treated as suspicious because he was under regular threat by people that apparently wanted him dead, some of which were very powerful people.

What it shouldn't be treated as, is an open and shut case. Skepticism given the circumstances, is in my opinion valuable here. There's very little to be lost from making absolutely sure that this wasn't foul play.

Sure, I agree, it's important to be skeptical. But, one wonders why they would choose to kill him in such an open manner, after he sent an email saying that he was being investigated by the FBI to Wikileaks' lawyers among other folks. Surely he could be dealt with in a much quieter fashion that isn't so open to being discovered. We can also confirm that he was indeed traveling very fast, certainly fast enough for things to go as wrong as they did very quickly.

Well, if we're looking at hits, a few things stand out historically.

Sometimes murders are done as an open warning. The mafia has used that approach forever.

Why did the Russians use polonium to kill Alexander Litvinenko? Surely there were better ways to kill him that wouldn't leave behind a radiated dying body. Were they trying to make a statement? Seems plausible.

What could be better than to publicly kill the target in a manner that can't be provably traced back, but stands as an open and dramatic point for everybody else to 'learn' from?

EXACTLY. He was a JOURNALIST. The point is to kill someone who might be about to disclose something you don't want disclosed, and create a chilling effect preventing others who might consider disclosing, whistleblowing, leaking, or simply reporting such things from doing so for fear they too would be murdered. This WORKS. Killing someone in secret only performs the first function. This is the essence of the idiom "killing two birds with one stone." In this case, it's killing 1,000 (or more) journalists with one rigged car.

> This WORKS.

Quoth the person who is apparently oblivious to the media shit-storm occurring right now.

There is really no media shitstorm about Michael Hastings. It's practically over now. What stays long afterwards is the chilling effect sensed by journalists and would-be-whistleblowers - the fear that by disclosing or reporting on the wrong story, they too might find themselves up in smoke.

If people threaten to kill you for years and you die in a suspicious matter that is far from proof that the two are even remotely related.

Let the evidence guide us to an understanding of what has happened, let us not put an interpretation on the events merely because we "feel" it must have happened a certain way.

San Diego 6 news report that Hastings was cremated even though his family did not request it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21WnsubYFps

Given it's a high profile case, surely something like this shouldn't happen?

Or is it quite common that the coroner or whoever with authority can dispose of the body however they wish?

Certainly odd, and I very much want as much investigation as possible, but it's not necessarily such a crazy thing to happen, in my opinion.

A burn victim is most likely to be cremated, I'd imagine. And it's possible that Hastings had a desire for cremation in his will or living will.

Let's wait and see what the evidence shows.

This is posted up thread, but the original "source" for the cremation story says it's bunk.

https://twitter.com/Rambobiggs/status/357352728499978240

Who was arguing that suspicion is proof?

I haven't claimed at any point that there is proof Hastings was murdered.

When someone gets an ample number of death threats, and they die in an even remotely suspicious manner, it is not a conspiracy to consider that one of those threats may have become actual. It's that simple.

McChrystal's staffer told Hastings directly: if you write something we don't like, we will kill you. Where's the conspiracy in suspecting that staffer of murder, given he threatened to murder Hastings?

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