UMass Grad Student: Tillman's not a hero.

[playahata1]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=1792200&partnersite=espn


AMHERST, Mass. -- A University of Massachusetts student has openly criticized Pat Tillman, calling the former NFL player a Rambo-like idiot in the school paper.


The column in question was submitted by graduate student Rene Gonzalez and published Wednesday in the Daily Collegian. It was titled "Pat Tillman is not a hero: he got what was coming to him."


Gonzalez writes that Tillman was a "Rambo" who probably acted out of "nationalist patriotic fantasies." In his own neighborhood in Puerto Rico, according to Gonzalez, Tillman would not have been considered a hero, but a "pendejo," or idiot.


The column drew harsh criticism from many on campus. University president Jack Wilson says the op-ed piece was "disgusting, arrogant and intellectually immature."

(more)

[Dhalgren]

1. Free speech and free press contiue to gasp for breath

in this poisoned atmosphere in the New Bushamerica. The University Presidents remarks regarding a student "Op-Ed" piece were disgusting, arrogant, and intellectually immature.

[daleo]

18. The words apply equally well to the president's critique

A university president should recognize that a critique like that says nothing more than "I didn't like it" and "I don't like him", without providing a foundation for the criticism. Someone in his position should realize that more is expected of him.

He (the president) is no doubt afraid of losing funding, either from the government or industry, if he doesn't toe the line on this matter, though. We will probably never know what he really thinks.

[bluestateguy]

31. Free speech also includes the right of rebuttal

The president of the university has just as much right as anyone else to comment on a student editorial. You make controversial remarks, expect to hear a lot of criticism. If this student were to be reprimanded, demoted or disciplined THAT would be censorship, but criticism of her writings does NOT constitute "censorship".

[daleo]

42. I didn't call it censorship

I said it was a critique that was short of content, and that a university president should provide a more thoughtful response (in my opinion).

[LETSGETFREAKY]

73. Agreed

That has always been one of the biggest misunderstandings of free speech. The response should be just as free. Thus, free speech exists

[DoNotRefill]

111. Free speech cuts both ways.

Gonzales had a free speech right to say what he did. At the same time, people who disagree with him have a free speech right to say what they think about his position.

[DemVet]

218. Yep.

Yep.

[Name removed]

214. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. 
[link:www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules.html|Click
here] to review the message board rules.

[DiverDave]

217. I think this is a better saying:

What do you call a poor republican?...a SUCKER!
Do you really believe that they have the working class in their plans?
If you do, you need to get your head out of the sand and look at what your selected goons have done to the middle/lower class.
But you won't, because the wingnuts tell you what to believe.
So much for critical thinking on your part. You are being lied to, and the ones telling the lies are laughing at you. Doesn't that bother you?, to be used?
Reality, it's a bitch, eh?.
And to call Tillman a hero without acknowledging the sacrifices made by the regular Joe's (and Jane's) is plain wrong.

[Caution]

2. right wing radio

in the boston area are ALL OVER this. Turning the views of one idiot into a "liberal" college thing.

[Dhalgren]

3. Why do you say this college writer is an "idiot"?

[Caution]

25. because i read his article

and he's not only an idiot but also a complete and total jerk. I don't question his right to be an idiot or to write idiotic things but I'm not going to defend the piece itself. Why do you give a crap one way or the other about my opinion of the writer of an article that is getting way more attention than it deserves?

[Frederic Bastiat]

23. Everything is fair game

If you're gonna make comments like that you've got to expect some kind of reaction non?

[Redleg]

29. Hey, exCav, long time no see. What's up?

Good to see you back here,
Redleg

[Frederic Bastiat]

37. I'm slowly becoming Canadian

I split my free time between watching hockey and enjoying the warmer weather outside. Life is too short. :)

[Tracer]

4. The student is an idiot?

He was pretty harsh in his opinion piece, but I'll defend his right to speak his piece no matter how harsh.

I'd never heard of Tillman until his death (football's not my thing), but I don't believe that he should be made into a plaster saint simply due to the circumstances of his death.

[Wetzelbill]

5. That is totally wrong....embarassing....

That is how liberals get unfairly painted and why we make easy targets sometimes. When someone on the left writes or says misguided drivel the rest of us get smacked with it.

Of course, it's perfectly acceptable for the far-right to act nuts. That's sort of what they are all about.

Tillman sacrificed for what he believed in. I doubt he was an ideologue. He was simply changed by 9-11 and wanted to sacrifice his career for his country. George Bush exploited 9-11, not Pat Tillman. I've been changed by 9-11 too. I read several newspapers a day, article after article, essay after essay, book after book in order to inform myself. I gave up chances to work in video and film to work towards a more political career. I worked as a columnist etc. After 9-11, we all changed and wanted to do something. Pat Tillman reacted the way he did out of love and integrity. I'm sorry that person wrote that garbage about him. The writer certainly has the right to do so, however, and I support that. The same as I support Safire, Krauthammer and the other glorious idiot's rights for free speech.

[greendeerslayer]

13. Sacrifice?

Sacrifice for what one believes in does not equal heroism. Were that the case the SS troopers who died in WW2 would be heroes but I think we all agree they were not. Sadly, 50 years hence, the American troops who die in Bush's War on Terra will probably be considered in the same sense as Hitler's soldiers. In fact, to a majority of the world's population they are considered as such now.
I believe Tillman was acting out of emotion and Rambo-like fantasy when he joined the army. Real heroes, like MLK or Mandela put their lives on the line for principle and reason and justice, not for the lords of Wall St.

[OC_dem]

34. Do you have and proof

for this statement:

"I believe Tillman was acting out of emotion and Rambo-like fantasy when he joined the army"

or because you don't understand how someone could fell a real need to stand up and fight for their country, it's just a Rambo like fantasy.

I doubt Pat Tillman's fantasy's ran to much more than scoring a touchdown in the super bowl.

[greendeerslayer]

130. etc.

I believe he was acting out of emotion because he joined the army after 9-11. There was not much logic or reason evident anywhere in those heady days. If he really was consumed with the need to defend his country why didn't he enlist after college? It took a large emptional event to convince him to enlist. Rambo fantasies? The guy was a college graduate, he could have been an officer, he chose the Rangers, and if you don't think Rangers are motivated by Rambo fantasies, meet some of them
I'm not a pacifist, if our country was threatened I would do what was possible to aid in the defense. But let's be honest, the soldiers in Iraq and the "Stan" are not "fighting for their country`" to believe they are is just more emotion and fantasy.e

[OC_dem]

131. Show some proof for this allegation

Going on just belief is the way George Bush operates.

[greendeerslayer]

140. Show me...

Show me some proof he was NOT acting out of fantasy and emotion. Fantasy and emotion is what motivates young men to war. They (and you) may cloak it however handy, but spare me.
Ever see the Marine Corps tv ad where the medievel (white) knight morphes into a modern-day marine? If that's not fantasy and emotion What the fuck is it? The ad must be effective, they've been running it for years. I guess a "lose your legs for Halliburton" campaign would be too realistic.

[rppper]

157. it's called an ad campaign and you're presenting a straw-man argument

under your line of thinking, anyone who joined the military after 911 has a Rambo fantasy. whatever you may think of Tillman's enlistment, he choose the hardest path to get to afgahnistan....the army rangers, navy seals and marine recon...all of the special forces, are among the hardest tests one can take in the military. while you are certainly entitled to your opinion, you should realize Tillman could have went to Afghanistan as a typical grunt and not had to put himself through such demanding training.

fantasy and emotion are not the only motivators to war either...most certainly not fantasy....there is no fantasy in war...only death and destruction for either side. emotion can be used for just about anything under the sun...emotion motivates humans in every task they do in one form or another. your point is mute.

i joined the navy in 1988 because the job market in Texas wasn't exactly running on all cylinders at the time...hardly an emotional cause nor some Rambo fantasy, despite the fact that things in the gulf were heating up and the situation in china at the time wasn't exactly peacefull. i had a friend recently join the army to get money to finish his BS degree, knowing full well he is going to the desert paradise of Iraq.

if there was emotion involved, it was Tillman's wanting to do something for his country...something he thought was honorable. he gave up being a millionaire and a celebrity to do so. would you have made that sacrifice? personally, i doubt Tillman had fantasies about killing anyone except those who might have been responsible for destroying the towers. there were quite a few people in America, both liberal and conservative, who felt the same way.

although i respect him for his service, i also don't think pat Tillman is a hero, no more a hero than any other soldier who has succumbed to bush's war on terra. he was a soldier who died doing what he was told to do, what he volunteered for. every soldier and sailor who has ever served knows the risks when they sign the dotted line and raise their right hand.

Tillman wasn't stupid, just inspired by the events of 911...inspired in a way that only pat Tillman and god will ever know. you are certainly not qualified to think for him nor anyone else, or know why they did what they did. Tillman got more press than the average soldier because of what he was before he was a soldier. nothing more, nothing less.

you are making a sweeping judgment of a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds with your argument. this is the same as the stereotypical "all military is right leaning" debate. it is not always so.

[dutchdemocrat]

205. I Disagree with this part of your statement.

Fantasy and emotion are not the only motivators to war either...most certainly not fantasy....there is no fantasy in war...only death and destruction for either side. emotion can be used for just about anything under the sun...emotion motivates humans in every task they do in one form or another. your point is mute.

In my opinion, much of American culture has been fueled by fantasy of guns and killing. From Foxkids (which we get in Europe and my kids are not allowed to watch) to computer games, to half of Hollywood. The Rambo metaphor has some legitimacy in my view. I don't blame Tillman, I blame the media and entertainment culture that breeds the killer mentality within American mainstream culture.

We Europeans understand more about death and destruction and war than most Americans having suffered through two world wars, and decades of terrorism. My great grandfather spend two years in a German camp for sending signals to England (he worked for Philips all his life after the war). Our cities were smashed. We had a hundred 9-11's.

And please, before you pipe into the 'we saved your ass' diatribe, Canadians liberated my city and they were in WW2 from the start... not after the Pearl Harbor fiasco of which your top players knew was coming and gave you reason enough to turn from fueling the war which made (Prescott) Bush, Harriman and Walker wealthy beyond belief selling guns.

Here's what war's about. The Bastard's have been doing it since WWI.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1490769

And the NRA, pro-gun, savage-inane-kill Chuck Norris, Rambo culture starts with the cartoons that are spoonfed to your kids (and to ours in Holland). You should take a minute and watch a little what they are showing kids... It's easy when they shut up in front of a TV. But what are they being programmed?

There is a lot of talk at DU about propaganda and the myth of the liberal media etc. Watch what you kids are watching.

Because that's what spawns the Tillman's of the world. He was in Afghanistan, he was where he should be, and that's the only reason I have an inkling of respect for your new American hero (wag the dog).

For the rest - I feel sorry for the kids who have been lied too in Iraq. As for the mercenaries, I feel nothing. The South Africans America has hired to do the dirty work are the lowest of the leftovers from the Boers and their racist apartheid regime. Don't you find it absurd that your tax dollars are going to pay thick headed Boers who are experts in killing Kaffirs? Because that's what the regime gave them the skills they have which are now useless in South Africa?

Your point is mute.

[rppper]

215. where did i say i support the iraqi debacle?

and where, oh where did i call tillman a hero? i couldn't give a rats ass about the mercenaries either...in fact i never once mentioned them. you have placed words in my mouth. there is little i support in this war, short of the individual efforts of soldiers in the field, and there was certainly no part of aparthied i respect.

here are my exact words...."although i respect him for his service, i also don't think pat Tillman is a hero, no more a hero than any other soldier who has succumbed to bush's war on terra."

what you consider to be mainstream in america isnt what mainstream is in my house. we are all not cowboys like john wayne or bloodthirsty killers, and we do not all have closets full of semi automatic weapons, although i do own firearms personally.

you do not need to lecture me about what has happened, terrorist attack-wise, in europe. i have traveled enough in europe to know this, and don't lump me in with some brain-dead fox news watcher, because most of my sources come from this site and sites like it, as well as raw news sites via the net. i gave up on the networks years ago. we had been very lucky here in the states prior to 911, and you and i are in agreement that it was only a matter of time before it happened here. i wish more people here could see that.

as for saving your ass...canada was part of the allies. the united states pretty much armed most of the allies, so in one way or another, we supported it. read up on the lend lease program, then get back to me. are you happy...you made me play a card for a game i never once mentioned anything about in the first place.

you know whats sad...the fact that i can not express an opinion about a fallen soldier without inspiring the wrath of the far wing of the side i have been a stallwart for since my early teens. i feel sorry for our soldiers over there, but god forbid i mourn their tragic loss via this war. it kills me to see them dieing for such a worthless reason. it hurts me that our government has seen fit to send them to their deaths, as well as the killing of innocents in the process. this whole thing is sad. i never said otherwise. chastise me if you will, but i will not piss on the grave of a fallen soldier....whatever his reason for enlisting. perhaps if mr. tillman had been dutch, you might be whistling a different tune.

war is sad. maybe you have a point about the fantasy part of it, but ultimatly it is all about death. i was correct there...show me i was wrong. our media inspires this, no doubt about it and no argument from me either, but one only has to look at the timeline of the rambo movies, or the swartzeneger war classics(sarcasm alert there btw)...all done during periods of right leaning administrations. it has now come to a boil here, but rest assured there is an even half of this country that does not support this administration or it's objectives. that part is left out and tucked away from view by our beloved media. you post here to, and there are a dozen or more active threads about media bias in these forums, so that should be painstakingly clear to you.

again, i refuse to feel guilty about feeling sorry for our soldiers who are killed or maimed in this non-war. i pity them all...i hurt for their useless sacrifices...i hurt for their families...i hurt for the innocents that are killed and wounded. there is nothing right about all of this, and i have been opposed to this from the start...it is all so senseless. no one in this mess deserves any of this, not our soldier, not the iraqi citizens...no one. i have never said otherwise

[OC_dem]

172. How sad

to go thorough life thinking people who do things you don't understand must be doing it for some low and base emotion. I don't know why he did but for some reason you insist you do, is it just him you feel this way about or is it everyone who does something you don't approve of or understand. This kind of stereotyping says a lot more about you than you could ever have to say about Pat Tillman.

Rest in peace Pat and thank you for your service and sacrifice.

[greendeerslayer]

201. I'm through beating this dead horse

How sad, to go through life believing the hogwash about service and sacrifice. If Tillman wanted to make the U.S. a better place there's a thousand and one things he could have done. Instead he decided to go shoot people in the third world. That song's been played so many times...it never gets any better. Instead of posting Mark Twain's photo on your post why don't you read some more of his work, especially his "War Prayer," that short piece was his take on the fallacy of "service and sacrifice" circa the colonial wars of 1898. Something tells me were Twain alive today he'd agree with me on this issue not you. He'd probably be quite depressed to learn after a century Americans are still falling for the same old tired lines.
Of course it's ALL AN AD CAMPAIGN. I understand that, you don't and neither did Tillman.

[OC_dem]

202. I have a copy

of The War Prayer, I understand it probably better than you. Think I've probably read every word Twain wrote. I'm not the person claiming to know Pat Tillman's motivation, you are, and can't even admit you really have no idea why Pat Tillman did what he did.

Service an sacrifice are not hogwash, believing so puts you in the same place on the left that the black helicopters believers inhabit on the right.

[greendeerslayer]

203. ?

We'll leave Twain for another day. Service and sacrifice for corporate elitism is hogwash and I stand by that.
If you really want to continue this let's get back to my original post - let's say there was a semi-pro soccer player in Weimar Germany. He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer and he really believes Hitler's agit-prop about the dangers communism and international jewry present to the Homeland. He believes the newspaper reports about the Polish excursions on the frontier. He's blond and athletic and he joins an SS commando unit. After serving in N.Africa he's sent to the western front where he's KIA. Would you laud his service and sacrifice as well?

[TolstoyAndy]

196. OC_dem, please note

You ask our colleague to defend the statement:
"I believe..."
and your evidence is
"I doubt...".

We're all free to believe and doubt here. I had my first-ever angry exchange on DU last weekend - w/ a bunch of Yankee fans.

They doubt, I believe. It is an unwinnable argument unless we bring facts to the table (which won't be available till October for the soon-to-be-longsuffering Yankees :) inshalla).

All of us can see a point in Gonzalez' column, but we know he expressed himself poorly.

Belief is only 1 side of the coin: doubt's on the other.

:thumbsup: and much respect!

[Wetzelbill]

35. Never said he was a hero.......

However, the guy's grandfather served in WW2; he had relatives fight in other causes and said that he felt he had done nothing in terms of sacrificing himself for our country. Now, whether or not you agree with a war or not, the guy gave up millions of dollars to do what he felt was the honorable thing to do. I will not debate about the definition of what a hero is, because we all have different ideals and convictions. Tillman was a unique man with a lot of guts and I salute that. That said, I do understand what you are saying and respect your point and opinions.

[stevedeshazer]

118. Very well said

No one but Tillman himself knew what he was thinking in his heart of hearts, but you cannot deny the man had guts. Maybe he really was a Rambo-type, but from what people who knew him have said, he really believed in what he was doing and paid the price, even if many of us think it was wrong.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

41. Discuss: our troops were duped into enabling an illegal war. Complicity?

If you commit a crime when you belive you're being virtuous, are you a criminal or a hero? Neither. A tragic victim of your own complicity.

This leads to our biggest current ethical dilemma: keeping tributes to the fallen from getting more 'innocents' killed.
I weep for our troops as I do for the other victims of amoral governments. But beyond sheer emotion and because I'm willing to say out loud painful things that will cause some who read this to flame with outrage:

The deifying tribute is used to cover up and perpetuate atrocities. That is the painful truth no one wants to say out loud about the tragedy of our troops killing innocents and being killed themselves. Once our troops get killed, their deaths are used to recruit even more complicity to 'make it worth the lives already spent.'

While all of us have been lied to since birth about the virtue of 'our'government and our troops have signed up trusting red-white-and-blue to equal Godliness and Family Values Defended,...
our troops CHOSE to KILL ON COMMAND. Something that utterly defies any sense of rational humanity. This blind trust and obedience must stop. The lessons of Vietnam have been totally forgotten. Trusting 'our' government can destroy the whole bloody planet.

This is where complicity comes into it. I don't care how much you want to deify our troops for self-sacrifice, they also chose to BLINDLY SACRIFICE OTHERS ON THE OTHER END OF THEIR RIFLES.

As Rumsfeld would say:
Does this mean that is tragic? Yes.
Does this mean that they are responsible for the situation the neocons have put them in? Of course not.
Does this mean they didn't use their brains and educate themselves enough to find out whether they can trust the US chain of command with their own and other's lives? Sadly, yes.

You can say simple things like "hate the war, not our troops."
I sure don't hate our troops and I wish them safety and a speedy return to their loved ones because they are victims, too.

But there is some element of personal responsibility involved in opening your hands to our disgusting government and saying "TELL ME WHO TO SHOOT."

Again, yes our troops were totally lied to about why the were off to war. But I've known not to trust the US gov't since I saw the Pentagon Papers when I was 10 years old. In 1979 when Carter reinstated selective service registration in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, I signed up while my buddys did not. My attitude was 'come and get me, assholes. I'll make the biggest public stink about your policies I possibly can and fight you off or do my jail time to keep from fighting your fucking oil wars.'

I wish more people knew what the US gov't was all about and stopped helping it murder so many people.

[bloom]

173. yes

I also think that in the Tillman case, there has to be some amount of connection with at least some people - He was a hero in Football = He was a hero in the Army.

While I mostly expect to hear that from right wing people, there seem to be some sports fans around here who make that connection, also.

[Just Me]

192. Your posts are so impactful, JOM.

I wish more people had knowledge about their own government, as well.

They NEED that knowledge and information in order to make informed decisions and in order to take any action towards change.

Moreover, right now, we are fighting an "enemy" that has declared a "War on Ideas". That extreme right-wing has actually declared a war on ideas. It's bad enough that the pendulum of our government has swung so freakin' far towards corporatism that it is literally starving its own people but to add such extreme right-wing "wars" to the brew is very frightening to me.

We are in serious danger of losing everything we supposedly stand for: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for ALL human beings.

[Dhalgren]

15. Well....

"It's perfectly acceptable for the far-right to act nuts. That's sort of what they are all about." And they now own everything - coincendence?

[Cronus Protagonist]

6. self deleted

don't need to feel the DU hate right now

[KissMyAsscroft]

8. I agree..

I'm tired of this country worshipping mindless nationalism. It's killing us.

[Cronus Protagonist]

9. True dat

And looks at the other posts on here expressing the same kind of nationalism that breeds fascism. Not that there's any fascism on DU at all *cough* - it's so nice to be part of a liberal community.

[Deaner1971]

12. Oh, got it dissent is facism

We dissagree with you and we are facists, you disagree and you are a lone voice in the wilderness. Stop throwing around terms like "facist" just because you have a minority opinion.

[Skittles]

14. *cough*

are you a veteran? I'm just curious.

[Dhalgren]

20. I'm a veteran.

Army, 1972-75 and I don't think Tilman is a hero. I think (as far as I know) that he was a "stand-up" guy, who did what he thought he should do. And he was rich enough to follow his wishes. I don't know what motivated his enlistment, I do know that in so doing, he became a pawn, a tool, of the Bush crime gang. Was he duped? Probably. If he ever figured it out, he did not act on his enlightenment; if he never figured it out...well, he seems to have performed his duties well and for that his family can be proud.

[Skittles]

22. I think it is OK to disagree on the word HERO

but to imply we are fascist for disagreeing with this student? Nonsense.

[Deaner1971]

11. I don't agree

I don't think that Pat Tillman's post-9/11 decision to join the Army was nationalistic or worthy of criticism.

In my opinion, the invasion of Afghanistan was different than the war in Iraq. Afghanistan was a defensive reaction to 9/11, Iraq was an opportunistic war that was draped with 9/11 as an excuse.

[Pastiche423]

33. A defensive reaction to what?

There has been no proof as to who perpetrated the September 11, 2001 attacks.

In case you din't know, there is a commission going on that is trying to find that out now.

[Deaner1971]

58. Actually

I belive that the 9/11 commission is presently studying what allowed the break-down in secuirty, not who was behind the attack. That was my understanding.

[Pastiche423]

63. So you are admitting

we still have no proof as to who is responsible for the attacks on our soil, right?

If so, what was Tillman fighting for?

[Deaner1971]

66. I was correcting your statement

You said that determining who was behind 9/11 was the point of the 9/11 Commission and I was correcting you. At no time was I admitting that Bin Laden was not behind it. Based on communication intercepts and the fact that Afghanistan has no oil (if it did I might doubt the intel there like I doubted the intel in Iraq) I believe that Al Queda was behind it.

I will grant that I am not certain that Bin Laden was as much the brains behind Al Queda as we once believed but, I have no doubt that Al Queda was the party responsible.

[Pastiche423]

70. "Afghanistan has no oil"

Can you say, "Caspian Sea"?

Do you mind sharing your proof that it was Al Qaeda? A few links, maybe?

Or do you simply trust your government to tell you the truth?

[Tinoire]

95. Oh boy Deaner... Someone needs to hand you a map of

Afghanistan, oil, and pipelines (which we were determined to get with "either a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs"; they refused the gold so we went in with the bombs)



The Taliban's unwillingness to accept US conditions frustrated the Americans. According to the author: "At one moment during the negotiations the US representatives told the Taliban 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs'."

It is well established that the Bush administration, and President George W Bush's family in particular, have strong oil corporate links. Vice-president Dick Cheney was until the end of last year president of Halliburton, a company that provides services for the oil industry. National security advisor Condoleeza Rice was a manager for Chevron between 1991 and last year, while commerce secretary Donald Evans and energy secretary Stanley Abraham worked for oil giant Tom Brown.

As journalist John Pilger asserted, the Taliban were trained and supported by the CIA and SAS, Britain's intelligence agency. Soon after their takeover of Kabul in 1996, their leaders were entertained by the executives of Unocal in Houston, Texas.

With secret US government approval, the company offered them a generous cut of the profits of the oil and gas pumped through the pipeline that the Americans wanted to build from Soviet Central Asia through Afghanistan. A US diplomat said: "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did." He explained that "Afghanistan will become a US oil colony; there would be huge profits for the West, no democracy and the legal persecution of women. We can live with that."

Although the deal fell through, it still remains an urgent priority of the Bush administration. The Caspian Basin has the greatest source of untapped fossil fuel on earth and enough, according to one estimate, to meet the US's voracious energy needs for generations. Only if the pipeline runs through Afghanistan can the US hope to control it.

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/linkscopy/AW_MtAE.html


Here's a link to get you started: http://www.worldpress.org/specials/pp/front.htm

[Just Me]

193. Unfortunately, the hi-jackers' "Saudi" links have been stuffed,...

,...so to speak, in addition to Pakistan funding. I will definitely give Tillman the benefit of the doubt and presume that he had no idea how contrived was the decision to hit Afghanistan. No American citizen would want to believe the real underlying motivations for such decisions.

Tillman was a pawn. I will believe his motivations were sincere. But, personally, I view him as an unfortunate pawn whose trust and talents were abused by USA authority.

I feel very sad, for that.

[Cronus Protagonist]

39. Afghanistan was a "defensive reaction"?

What a nice way to put it. I think historians might call it a retaliatory attack, but your phrasing seems so much nicer.

[Deaner1971]

62. And???

Right, we should have just sat still and apologized for letting our buildings get in the way of their planes.

Bad Americans attacking those nice Al Queda folks...

[Cronus Protagonist]

72. Nice leap there

You are so adept at reading people's minds. Not accurate, but adept nonetheless.

[chenGOD]

105. considering that many of the attackers were Saudis...

why did the US bomb Afghanistan and not Saudi Arabia?

Remember, Afghanistan offered up Al Qaeda to Bush on two occasions, both times the offer was rejected.


Still don't think it had anything to do with getting that oil pipeline installed?

[TolstoyAndy]

199. Sadly, 1971, Afg offered to turn over OBL in Oct 2001

The war against Afghanistan was unnecessary.

It could have been done without killing so many.

And don't forget: Bush needs their oil, and their land for the pipeline.
(Clinton invited the Talibs in 1998 to negotiate that. Bush gave them $43 million in spring 2000.) There was nothing "defensive" about killing thousands of Aghanis then, just like there was no defensive aspect to killing thousands of Iraqis from 1991 till now.

The Afghan "war" like the Iraq "war" could have been solved by negotiations.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/07/ret.us.taliban/
U.S. rejects Taliban offer to try bin Laden
Nic Robertson Kelly Wallace | 10-07-2001


http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,573975,00.html
Bush rejects Taliban offer to hand Bin Laden over
Guardian Staff | 10-14-2001
"Afghanistan's deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.
"If the Taliban is given evidence that Osama bin Laden is involved" and the bombing campaign stopped, "we would be ready to hand him over to a third country", Mr Kabir added."

[ikojo]

221. A defensive reaction to the events of 9/11

would have been to bomb Saudi Arabia back into the stone age since a majority of the hijackers and Osama himself are the products of Saudi society.

[brokensymmetry]

7. Such statements about any dead American -

most especially one who chose to serve our country in the military for very modest pay - are not helpful. They are hurtful, especially to the family and friends of the deceased.

I cannot imagine speaking so unkindly about any of our soldiers. Mr. Gonzalez should, in my opinion, be ashamed of himself.

[Skittles]

10. Immature and un-called for

you may disagree on the definition of the word HERO but to denigrate the service of Mr. Tillman - to say he "got what was coming" - is unbelievably despicable.

[funkybutt]

24. I agree

out of line, unacceptable

[GCP]

69. Nicely put, Skittles

Gonzalez has shown nothing more than immaturity to a massive degree, and undermined liberals in general with this moronic column.

[Donkeyboy75]

188. Given his very inflammatory tone throughout the article,

I think "Mister" Gonzalez was just trying to stir up some shit and gain a little notoriety.

[Bigmack]

16. Victim...

The guy is a victim of this stupid war... the same as the other kids killed and maimed.

The gung-ho-for-war media and the phony-tough Bushco rhetoric push these kids into the military where they become brainwashed by the military ethic.

I know... that was me long ago. I outgrew it after "seeing the elephant" for myself.

I'd like to see a more balanced letter that asks the question "Why did beautiful, brave kids like Tillman have their service and their sacrifice and their lives thrown away on a stupid blunder like Iraq?"

Or.... paraphrasing Kerry in 1971.... "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

[damnraddem]

17. He had a right to say it.

But whatever our own feelings, it's smarter not to say things like this. I'm happy to praise Tillman as a hero -- pull the troops out of Iraq. I have no idea what he was like personally -- putll the troops out of Iraq. Support the troops -- pull them out of Iraq.

[Zynx]

19. That's very disrespectful.

Besides, anyone who gives up a salary that size to serve their country has true convictions and is not a chickenhawk. Besides, he died fighting the real enemy, Al-Qaeda and he should be honored for that.

[FlemingsGhost]

21. Rene Gonzales: About as much a "Hero" as Tillman.

Speaking his mind in a time when it could very well cost him and his family dearly. And I guarantee it will, in this case.

See how easy it is to create a hero? Heroes, heroes, heroes everywhere...

:puke:

(on edit: typo)

[TahitiNut]

26. UMass has a history of such 'free speech' going back 40 years.

:shrug: (at least)

[Redleg]

27. That's f@cking harsh. How could one say that of a person they

know so little about? (Okay- I know I ended that sentence with a preposition- so sue me, allright?)

That's an example of some very careless and stupid free speach.

[bluestateguy]

28. Can somebody provide a link to the full article?

I'd like to read the whole article before commenting.

[rinsd]

30. Here's a link....

http://www.dailycollegian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/04/28/408f27f0591be

Though the server is busy now.

[argyl]

32. Sylvester Stallone is Rambo.He made millions to act out "nationalistic

patriotic fantasies" and taught dance class in Switzerland and made a porno movie when he could have gone to Viet Nam.Tillman turned down millions,acted on what he believed in,and was killed for it.
Personally,I believe we should have gone after OBL with surgical strikes rather the all out war we waged,so I guess I disagree with Tillman,but I still admire and mourn him for making the ultimate sacrifice in his country's service.

[FlemingsGhost]

43. He was a pawn. May he rest in peace.

And WTF does money have to do with it?

[The Stranger]

36. If you subtract the (unnecessary) hyperbole from her article (or at least

what ESPN quotes from it), you end up with this: If Tillman was not defending the U.S. from invasion by fighting what's left of Afghanistan (which is an entirely plausible premise), was his service in Afghanistan really necessary? And, if his service really wasn't necessary, then why was he doing it?

Maybe that is a pretty good question.

[Frederic Bastiat]

45. Unfortunately that's not how he put it

So now he has to revisit the law of physics; every action has an equal/opposite reaction. Hope he's ready for it.

[The Stranger]

52. So what about the question?

You are correct in that it is a common right-wing tactic to attack the person to avoid the issue (just consider Michael Moores and the attacks he has come under despite some good issues he has raised or watch FoxNews for five minutes), so what about the question as it is now presented?

[rinsd]

49. The hyperbole was the whole point....

This was to get a reaction. Basically the author mind reads Pat Tillman on the basis of his picture then extrapolates motives and uses as much inflammatory rhetoric as possible.

Its a Peta style op-ed.

[The Stranger]

55. It did get people's attention.

Of course, deciphering the author's precise motives -- that sounds like an extrapolation. Now, about the question presented again . . .

[rinsd]

57. Based on the article and not a simple photo.

The question wasn't presented by the author, you "extrapolated" it. :-)

[The Stranger]

83. Maybe I extracted it from the hyperbole.

But it is already there in the article.

Gonzalez also says that Tillman's service was not "necessary." . . . "It wasn't like he was defending the East coast from an invasion of a foreign power. THAT would have been heroic and laudable," Gonzalez writes. . . . He wasn't defending me, nor was he defending the Afghani people.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=1792200&partnersite=espn

Which leaves us (yet again) with the question of why he thought it was necessary to go there. Maybe it didn't have anything to do with a war movie. But, then again, what was it?

[rinsd]

65. Well...

That would depend if you fall into the US is at fault for everything camp and Bush MIHOP, wouldn't it?

Otherwise, the context was a guy from a military family decides with his brother to forgoe their normal lives and enter the military after this country was attacked.

Why he did so beyond that? You would have to ask his family and friends. He refused all interviews after his decision.

[radwriter0555]

38. tillman wasn't a hero. he played sports and then went to kill people...

how does that make him a hero?

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TX-RAT]

44. Same talk i heard in 1969

Very sad

[FlemingsGhost]

50. They had a point then, too.

'69, huh? Oh, the "Old-school Quagmire."

[TX-RAT]

54. And your point is?

[FlemingsGhost]

59. History repeats...

when one refuses to pay attention and understand.

[TX-RAT]

68. pay attention and understand what?

[el_gato]

46. good question

too bad people get so worked up in an effort to appear
all patriotic

Maybe we should all go overseas and get killed
so we can die hero's too!

[Name removed]

53. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[radwriter0555]

89. I OBJECT LOUDLY to MY tax dollars being used to finance DEATH, while

it seems others willingly champion such insane doings, and, astoundingly, even uphold as heros the people that DO go willingly to kill and murder.

[TX-RAT]

61. appear patriotic?

So what would you risk your life for?

[Deaner1971]

48. Who says you get to judge?

Because of people like Pat Tillman, there is no draft and you get to have as much time as you want to criticize the dead. Is that reason enough?

I don't support the war in Iraq but, we weren't in Iraq when Pat Tillman volunteered. He joined because his nation had been attacked and, for all he knew, could be attacked again.

The idea that there are real life Rambos is idiotic. Most soldiers' dreams of glory on the battlefield end when the first bullet passes their head or when their first friend gets hit.

Soldiers fight because the guy next to them will die if he or she doesn't fight. You don't have to love war, you just have to love your fellow soldiers.

Pat Tillman joined the Army because his nation had been attacked. He didn't join to enforce Bush's policies in Iraq, he just joined to protect his country and his countrymen.

Don't blame our men and women in uniform for being led be a fool. Blame the fool.

[nagbacalan]

154. Faux

This should get big time play with this crew. A perfect foil for their jingoistic platitudinous cliches.

[amazona]

47. that is so mean-spirited

Why crap on somebody like that for following his ideals instead of the cash? If we crap on everybody who puts their beliefs ahead of the Almighty Dollar, we won't have anyone to defend us. Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership of Afghanistan provided material support for an attack on U.S. soil. If we are not justified in fighting back after that sort of attack, my question would be: Is there ANYTHING worth fighting for?

I don't understand people sometimes. I'll fully admit, I would have taken the $9 million, instead of being a warrior. But this is what makes Tillman a hero. He did not make the easy choice.

[Pastiche423]

60. Killing tens of thousands of innocent Afghanis

is justification of an attack on our soil by perpetrators unknown?

To this day, April 29, 2004, WE STILL DO NOT KNOW WHO DID IT!

Yeah, our government told us it was OBL, w/o proof. And because they thought he was in Afghanistan, bombing that country is justification?

Tilt, tilt, tilt.

[OC_dem]

126. OK

Who is responsible, any one out there a more likely culprit. Evidence against Al-Queda may not be court room strong, but is strong none the less

[mvd]

147. I supported that war, and even stuck with my belief..

..until very recently. But now, I'm thinking we should have tightened intelligence up on our side, and just focused on the Al Qaeda leaders. Turns out that we got a lot of minor targets. Terrorists aren't in certain places, like governments are. Are we going to stay there forever? So far, things aren't as under control as we thought.

[Supply Side Jesus]

51. Oh I See!!!!

Tillman lays down his life for something he believes in and he is a hero...
Rachel Corrie does the same thing and is labeled an idiot by wingnuts and such. :puke:

Far as I am concerned they are both patriots who died for what they feel was right.

[AJ BENDER]

56. Did You Know ?

That when the Arizona Cardinals complete their tax-payer subsidized stadium that they will name the front entrance area :

"Pat Tillman Freedom Plaza"

[Castor Troy]

80. and what exactly is wrong with that?

Sounds like a good idea to me.

[Forkboy]

64. How dare someone not worship at the altar of nationalism!!??!!

the nerve of kids these days...

[JohnLocke]

136. Gimme a break.

Tillman hunted for terrorists in the mountains of Afghanistan -- what we should be doing instead of starting wars in Iraq -- and this moron denigrates him. A little outrage isn't "worship at the altar of nationalism," thank you very much.

[Forkboy]

170. hey hey hey...one break coooommming up!

change! nothing stays the same! yeah change!

[JohnLocke]

180. See? You can't defend your indefensible position, so you resort to this.

[Forkboy]

184. You reminded me of Van Halen

think what you want :shrug:

[Name removed]

67. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Cronus Protagonist]

74. Hahahaa! Good one (eom)

[TX-RAT]

77. Laughing at a soldiers death?

Buy then I guess some people will laugh at anything, no matter who it hurts.

[Tiberius]

86. That's not what was being laughed at

The general nature of the post was what was being laughed at.

I found that post funny, too. I love it when freepers invade. They post stuff like "THIS GUY WAS A TRUE HERO, IF YOU QUESTION THAT YOU'RE A COMPLET A$$HOLE". Not as funny as "you're all morans" but still funny.

[treepig]

75. absolutely, he's a hero

just like all the rest of bush's willing executioners who sign up to go kill defenseless povery-stricken third-world civilians (while the "real terrorists" are escorted out of the country by pakistan's isi; see http://propagandamatrix.com/the_getaway.html )

usa usa usa!!!

[FlemingsGhost]

78. Ah yes, name-calling and personal attacks

Is that all you got?

Stop paying attention to what others might think, and do some thinking of your own.

[TX-RAT]

79. Nice advice

You should try it.

[FlemingsGhost]

81. Try what?

:shrug:

[bobbyboucher]

90. Concentrate on speaking for yourself,

that way, you might get the whole concept of independent thought.

[Catherine Vincent]

71. This student sounds as if he was jealous of Pat Tillman.

How can he say Pat got what's coming to him? What an ass!

[x-g.o.p.er]

84. Agreed.

Nice post. Succinct and to the point

[VolcanoJen]

76. Tillman was a hero.

I know it can sometimes be a contentious point here at DU, but goddammit, I will always remember him as a hero, and a patriot.

He had served previously in Iraq, but joined the US Army (enlisted, in fact, even though he could have gone in as an officer, if he wanted to) to fight in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan has been diminished by the Bush Administration, but Tillman's sacrifice has certainly not been diminished in my eyes.

If we want to bitch about bad soldiers, we need look no further than the disgusting pigs involved in this ugly story:

60 Min II - US troops tortured Iraqi prisoners - mp3 & vp3 video here

It's likely a personal thing, and I doubt we'll ever reach consensus on this issue. But in the eyes of this American, Pat Tillman was a hero.

[Castor Troy]

82. The Great thing about Pat Tillman

is that he personified the selflessness that can be great in a human being. I would say that 99.999% of people wouldn't turn down 4 million dollars for any reason. This guy did. He was a courageous young man who didn't live for material things, but instead lived (and died0 for something he believed in: America. Humankind's greatest hope!

[FlemingsGhost]

85. Yeah... money is the basis in which I measure sacrifice.

:puke:

[Castor Troy]

88. Yeah, and I guess getting killed doesn't count as sacrifice for you either

I actually have a brother in the army in Iraq. I think what he said sums it up best: "The difference between Pat Tillman and everybody else over here is that noone else would have given up what he did to come here."

I am gonna go with a hunch here and say that you wouldn't have either.

[FlemingsGhost]

98. Did I say that? That is indeed the sacrifice I had in mind.

You were the one who brought up money. You know, the "great thing about Pat Tillman."

Sorry, the rest of your post is about as factually sound as me claiming I have a 12" inch penis. (I do... really!) Excuse me if I don't take your word at face value, on an online forum.

[Castor Troy]

104. Take it how ever you want to, but It is true

I give you my word, my brother really is in Iraq, and he really did tell me that. Not the exact quote, but basically the same thing. I probally shouldn't have put it in quotes, but I wasn't trying to be dishonest about it. I was trying to say it from his point of view.

[FlemingsGhost]

106. Doesn't make a bit of difference to me.

Your brother was not the subject of our debate.

[treepig]

100. have you considered that his primary motivation

may have been to kill, not to have been killed?

frankly, i have no idea if he was one of those who showed up to boot camp wearing a "kill them all, let god sort them out t-shirt" - but that mentality is beholden by a sizable minority of enlistees.

and it's not easy legally shooting someone in this county. about the only opportunity is if you live in utah - and then if you're real lucky, you may be selected to serve on a firing squad:


"On the 17th of January 1977 Gary Mark Gilmore became the first person to be executed in the U.S. for twelve years after putting up a strenuous campaign to be allowed to die. He chose shooting. Under Utah law in force then, the condemned man had the choice of shooting by firing squad or hanging. He was executed by six volunteers in the old canning factory in the prison grounds using Winchester Model 94 lever action repeating rifles loaded with Winchester Silver Tip 150-grain .30-30 caliber cartridges. Only five of the rifles had live ammunition, the sixth containing a blank round so that the firing squad would not know who had fired the fatal shots.
He was tied to a chair and had a white target pinned over his heart. After the death warrant had been read to him he was asked if there was anything he wanted to say and uttered the famous line "Lets do it"
His execution renewed the capital punishment process in America and was graphically described in the Norman Mailer book and subsequent film "The Executioner's Song".
19 years later John Taylor became the second person to suffer the same fate.

more http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/shooting.html


so wouldn't it be "safer" for those who wish to kill just to "volunteer" for firing squad duty? well, according to the "Utah Peace Officers Association"

"it was the responsibility of the Sheriff of the County from which the condemned man was sentenced, to furnish a firing squad. Our present law places this responsibility upon the Warden of the Utah State Prison to make all necessary arrangements for the execution. To my knowledge there has never been a prison officer who served on any firing squad and I feel confident that there never will be. Such a duty would place the officer in a very difficult position as it is necessary for him to work with an inmate population each day. However, a firing squad must be selected. This is done from a list of volunteers who have agreed to serve on such a squad. "

http://www.upoa.org/archives/Haueters/MercyonSoul.htm

with only 2 executions in the past 3 decades, there's got to be a lot of frustrated would-be killers out there. rumor has it that last time around, cash incentives were being offered so that certain "volunteers" would be more likely to be selected. sure, the $$$ involved weren't in the $4million range - but in principle, what's the difference?

[OC_dem]

128. So now Pat Tillman

is at the level of somebody who volunteers for a firing squad - interesting thought clueless but interesting.

Folks who put on this countries uniform are heroes till proved otherwise.

[treepig]

163. it's a fairly apt analogy

in both cases the goal is to kill somebody you envision as a danger to you or your way of life.

if you regard such a person as a hero, fine.


to me, heros are those who work to make our country safer through spreading peace and justice, thereby removing the root cause of terrorism. in that respect, rachie corrie is a true hero.


someone like mr. tillman, on the other hand, is surely a hero to the right-wing nutso who depend on perpetual war to gain a good measure of their political standing. surely the concept of "blowback" must be known to a university graduate with a 3.83 gpa? and yet he went, knowing that he was sure to make the usa less safe. did he never learn that you just can't go fuck up somebody else's country, and not expect there to be consequences. here's a description of afghanistan in the fall of 2001:

The U.S. war on Afghanistan is a brutal attack on a country that has already been almost destroyed by more than 20 years of foreign invasion and civil war.' The Soviet occupation, which lasted from 1979 to 1989, left more than a million people dead. Millions still live in refugee camps More than 500,000 orphans are disabled. Ten million land mines still litter the country, killing an average of 90 people per month. At 43 years, life expectancy in Afghanistan is on average 17 years lower than that for people in other developing countries. The countryside is devastated and is currently experiencing a severe drought, with 7.5 million people threatened with starvation. The death and destruction wrought by the U.S. bombing campaign-and the cut off of food aid deliveries it has caused-have already killed hundreds and produced thousands more refugees scrambling to escape into Pakistan.

But not only is Washington attacking one of the poorest countries in the world, past U.S. government actions are in no small part responsible for the current situation in Afghanistan. The Bush administration claims to be targeting Osama bin Laden, who it says masterminded the September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (even though it has offered no concrete evidence to back up this accusation), and Afghanistan's Taliban government, which is sheltering him. But as the Economist magazine noted soon after September 11, " policies in Afghanistan a decade and more ago helped to create both Osama bin Laden and the fundamentalist Taliban regime that shelters him." An examination of this history will reveal the extent to which U.S. foreign policy is based on hypocrisy, realpolitik, and the short-term pursuit of narrow interests.

more at:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_CIA_Taliban.html

basically, the usa (starting with carter luring the russians into the "afghan trap") has inflicted 25 years of sheer misery on the people of afghanistan. and to you a hero is somebody who volunteers to go continue the atrocities? very strange.

[OC_dem]

175. You can rant

all you want, but the simple fact is none of us have any idea why Pat Tillman did what he did. You can decide that he did what he did out of some base and low emotion, but you don't really know. My question to you is: Does everybody who does something you don't approve of or understand get sterotyped in this fashion?

Your sterotyping Pat Tillman this way says a lot more about you than you could ever have to say about Pat Tillman.

Pest in Peace Pat and thank you for your service and sacrifice.

edit fixed typo

[treepig]

183. i'm not stereotyping, this guy had a history of violence

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/magazine/04/23/tillman.flashback/

"If there was trouble, you looked for Pat first," says Beard. "Usually it wasn't serious." One time it was. In the fall of Pat's senior year, he went to the aid of a friend in a fight outside a pizza parlor and, in Pat's words, "beat the s---" out of his friend's assailant, who was in his early 20s. Several weeks after the incident Pat was arrested and charged as a juvenile (he was 17) with felony assault. Before the case was resolved, he accepted a scholarship to Arizona State (Brigham Young and San Jose State were the other schools that offered) but desperately feared it would be revoked. Pat quietly pleaded guilty to the charge. In the summer of '94 he served 30 days in a juvenile detention facility, and his conviction was reduced to a misdemeanor upon his release.

Tillman's incarceration ended two weeks before his first college football practice. Arizona State never learned of his trouble with the law.

what with the favored treatment athletes get (remind me how many of the colorado rapists are now in prison?), i suspect anyone else would have served way more than 30 days, and would never have received a college fellowship.

[OC_dem]

185. I got into a fight when I was 22

defending a black friend of mine in a cowboy bar. I guess by your standard I'm prone to violence too. If you substitute black or blacks for Pat Tillman's name in your posts maybe you'd realize how stereotyped your image of him is.

Your making a argument about what you think you know about him, instead of ascribing a positive motive to him, you chose to give him a negative motive. Yes to me this is sad and intolerant viewpoint of him, its the same kind of thing the right wing talking heads do on T.V. or the radio do in regards to the left.

You, I don't think, know Pat Tillman why to you feel the need to denigrate him?

[treepig]

186. a test of reading comprehension: a "fight" v. "fights"

"If there was trouble, you looked for Pat first," says Beard. "Usually it wasn't serious."

does that sentence suggest a recurring pattern of violent behavior to you?

a pattern who's ultimate and logical outcome might be to find a home to engage in even more deadly forms of violence? and to do so without legal ramification - in fact, quite the opposite - widespread adulation from the denizens of a putatively progressive website? it's quite a world indeed that this is turning into.

[OC_dem]

187. I never said I got into just one fight

and no I'm not particularly violent, I'm just six foot eight and about 250, trouble just seemed to follow me around in those days, lots of big people have this problem by the way.

Even if Pat Tillman was prone to violence (and yes football is a violent sport), lots of people are and they don't go into the military, so clearly there is more to it than that.

I'm just try to point out to you, you don't know why he did what he did, the best you can do is come up with some half baked reason that matches your preconceptions of what military people are like.

Yes it is "quite a world indeed that this is turning into" when "denizens of a putatively progressive website" stereotype people they don't know and don't honor those in service to this country.

[treepig]

197. ok, gotcha . . . sorry to have underplayed your violent tendancies

in my previous post.

for those lovers of violence out there, you also gotta love what we've accomplished in afghanistan:

According to research by Marc Herold, an economics professor at the University of New Hampshire, and others, American/British state terrorists have murdered an estimated minimum of 24,000 civilian people so far, including women, children and elderly people — innocent people who had nothing whatsoever to do with the September 11 attacks.


On November 12, the U.S. Air Force dropped a 500-pound bomb on the al-Jazeera T.V. studios in the heart of Kabul. Al-Jazeera had been broadcasting scenes of the total devastation which American state terrorism was wreaking on the lives of innocent people in Kabul.

The U.S. military bombed the T.V. station just before the “Northern Alliance” occupied Kabul so that the bloody massacres and reprisals which they knew would take place would be as hidden as possible from American people. The U.S. military ensured there were no T.V. cameras rolling when their “Northern Alliance” buddies strapped their prisoners to tank treads, rolled the tanks forward and crushed the men to death, while smirking -heroic and patriot - American military personnel stood by and enjoyed the show. There were no T.V. cameras to record when the U.S. military’s “Northern Alliance” buddies raped other men and sadistically tortured them to death.

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/afghanistan/AmericanHypocrisy.html


thousands of prisoners who surrendered to the US military’s Afghan allies after the siege of Kunduz. According to eyewitnesses, some three thousand of the prisoners were forced into sealed containers and loaded onto trucks for transport to Sheberghan prison. Eyewitnesses say when the prisoners began shouting for air, U.S.-allied Afghan soldiers fired directly into the truck, killing many of them. The rest suffered through an appalling road trip lasting up to four days, so thirsty they clawed at the skin of their fellow prisoners as they licked perspiration and even drank blood from open wounds.

Witnesses say that when the trucks arrived and soldiers opened the containers, most of the people inside were dead. They also say US Special Forces - everyone of them a patriot hero of the highest order - re-directed the containers carrying the living and dead into the desert and stood by as survivors were shot and buried. Now, up to three thousand bodies lie buried in a mass grave.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3267.htm



meanwhile, the "real terrorists" if any actually were in afghanstan at all, were escorted out of the country:

http://propagandamatrix.com/the_getaway.html

[OC_dem]

198. When you change the subject like

that does that mean you give up and admit you don't know why Pat Tillman did what he did?

Or are you now saying I'm violent, even though you don't know me at all. Guess you won't be voting for John Kerry since his military record has 20 "kills" on it.

[bobbyboucher]

101. That is the sappiest bunch of crap that I have heard in

a while. Nice job.

[bluestateguy]

87. I would just remind people of one thing

Before people here choose to indulge in attacks upon individual servicemen fighting on the ground (that excludes the six soldiers just court-martialed for torturing Iraqi prisoners) I would remind people here that we have a prominent DUer here, Mari333, who has a stepson in Iraq, in a very dangerous son. Neither she, her stepson, nor most of his unit are support Bush Administration policies. I dare those of you who are sympathetic to this keyboard pecker at UMASS to say some of those things to our DUers with family in Iraq.

[treepig]

92. do you see no difference

between those who were "tricked" into service during the "benign" clinton administration (i.e., those who were naive kids who just wanted an college education or thought they were going into the national guard so they could sandbag rivers during floods (or whatever) and those like mr. tillman who knew exactly what he was doing when he signed up for caligula jr.'s military?

anybody who volunteered for military service during mr. bush's administration (who's only purpose is to engage in perpetual war, heck, even the onion predicted that with spot-on accuracy) has got to be regarded as a villian, not a hero.

[bluestateguy]

96. No, I don't

Tillman signed up to fight in Afghanistan, where, I'm sorry, there was a legitimate national interest. The Bush team may not have handled it the right way, but the mission was justified. He was then sent to Iraq, to fight a war that never should have been fought. This was not Tillman's choice. To disobey those orders would have resulted in imprisonment or even execution as a deserter. The blame should be directed only towards the politicians and war planners in Washington. I am not going to let the American Left go down this dangerous path of bashing the soldiers in the field, as some did 30-35 years ago. It damaged the Left for a generation, and more important, it was just plain wrong.

[treepig]

103. what was the "legitimate national interest" we had in afghanistan

when 9-11 was a saudi-financed and -peopled operation?

by using your loginc, why wasn't military action necessary against oklahoma after timothy mcveigh's antics? or against florida and phoenix where the alleged 9-11 perpetrators allegedly attended flight school

in any event, as has been stated in other threads, mr. tillman was brilliant, graduating from college with a 3.83 gpa i've been told (in the excrutiatingly difficult major of marketing, no less) - therefore the "i'm just a dumbass, naive kid who wants to serve my country (and get a college education)" defense surely can't apply to him. how could such an intelligent person volunteer to go to afghanistan to continue inflicting decades-old pattern of misery?

but that's all history, so let's recount what mr. bush - in a totally predictably manner based on his past records of fucking up everything he touches (once again, how could the incredibly brilliant mr. tillman not have known who he was joining up with?) - has accomplished in afghanistan:

1. The Convoy of Death

It tells the story of thousands of prisoners who surrendered to the US military’s Afghan allies after the siege of Kunduz. According to eyewitnesses, some three thousand of the prisoners were forced into sealed containers and loaded onto trucks for transport to Sheberghan prison. Eyewitnesses say when the prisoners began shouting for air, U.S.-allied Afghan soldiers fired directly into the truck, killing many of them. The rest suffered through an appalling road trip lasting up to four days, so thirsty they clawed at the skin of their fellow prisoners as they licked perspiration and even drank blood from open wounds.

Witnesses say that when the trucks arrived and soldiers opened the containers, most of the people inside were dead. They also say US Special Forces re-directed the containers carrying the living and dead into the desert and stood by as survivors were shot and buried. Now, up to three thousand bodies lie buried in a mass grave.

The film has sent shockwaves around the world. It has been broadcast on national television in Britain, Germany, Italy and Australia. It has been screened by the European parliament. It has outraged human rights groups and international human rights lawyers. They are calling for investigation into whether U.S. Special Forces are guilty of war crimes.

But most Americans have never heard of the film. That’s because not one corporate media outlet in the U.S. will touch it. It has never before been broadcast in this country.


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3267.htm

Airlifting the "real terrorists" out of Afghanistan

On November 25th, the Northern Alliance took Kunduz, capturing some four thousand of the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. The next day, President Bush said, "We're smoking them out. They're running, and now we're going to bring them to justice."

Even before the siege ended, however, a puzzling series of reports appeared in the Times and in other publications, quoting Northern Alliance officials who claimed that Pakistani airplanes had flown into Kunduz to evacuate the Pakistanis there. . . . American intelligence officials and high-ranking military officers said that Pakistanis were indeed flown to safety, in a series of nighttime airlifts that were approved by the Bush Administration. The Americans also said that what was supposed to be a limited evacuation apparently slipped out of control, and, as an unintended consequence, an unknown number of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters managed to join in the exodus.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?020128fa_FACT


3. Pilots on drugs killing our allies

Four Canadian soldiers died in Afghanistan last night after a US fighter jet mistakenly dropped one or two 500lb, laser-guided bombs on their unit.
Canadian officials said at least eight of their soldiers were wounded in the incident, which occurred during a well publicised live-fire training exercise near the southern town of Kandahar.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,686313,00.html


4. Killing more innocent afghani civilians than were killed in 9-11

http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm


5. But on the positive side, agriculture is making a comeback, with certain crops at record high levels . . .

Poppy crop highest ever in Afghanistan


By Anwar Iqbal
UPI South Asian Affairs Analyst


WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- Afghanistan had the highest-ever cultivation of opium poppy in 2003 despite the government's effort to curb narcotics, a U.S. government agency reported Monday.

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040301-054323-1416r.htm

[bluestateguy]

107. You're over-intellectualizing

They attacked us, we defended ourselves. Good old-fashioned common sense.

Did the Bush Administration screw up the details? Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that we had the right, as any nation state does, to defend ourselves from a state that provided clear and unambiguous support for Al Qaeda.

[treepig]

125. we didn't defend ourselves

we've instead created a whole new generation of potential terrorists who'll be coming after us 20 years or so down the road

thanks alot for making a world a less safe place for my kids!

[Forkboy]

135. Yeah,we should just quit thinking so much!

it's bad for the brain,everyone knows that!

[silverpatronus]

166. how is a counter-attack weeks after the fact...

...defence? retaliatory, yes. not defensive. defensive would have been if NORAD had put fighter jets in the sky to shoot down the plane headed for the second tower, or the pentagon. that's defence. defence is what the heroes on the pennsylvania flight did by attacking the hijackers. that's defence. afghanistan was a retaliatory offensive. not to mention that the money and paper trails all point to the saudis so why was afghanistan targeted for attack anyway?

house of bush, house of saud anyone?

[bluestateguy]

97. Delete (dupe)

Server duped the post.

[rppper]

158. that is wrong on so many levels.....

who are you to decide why people sign up for the military during any time period. if you haven't noticed, there are a few less million jobs available now than in 2000...perhaps feeding ones family was the motivation and not bloodlust. clinton wasn't shy about using the military either, smarter about it no doubt, but certainly not shy.

[treepig]

162. aha, the old "feeding one's family" song and dance

let's think of a few other options:

1) enter the sex-service provider industry

2) grow tobacco

3) peddle drugs of a more nefarious nature (and thanks to us military intervention in afghanistan, there'll be an abundant supply to sell).

4) serve as a hitperson for the mob (they're effective at keeping order in their neighborhoods, much like the u.s. military likes to think it's effective at keeping every other nation in line).

etc etc.

but good thinking on bringing up mr. clinton's atrocities. mr. hannity would be so proud!

and who am i to judge people's motivation? i guess i should make clear i wasn't judging, i was merely passing along observations i have made from 3 or 400 people i have been acquainted with who have enlisted. sure, that's a rather small sample size, but in line with many opinion polls which are much discussed at this website.

[rppper]

169. why not just call me a freeper then?

you seem to be quite adept at painting a little picture with a big brush...you have only further proven my point...thanks, not that i needed help. also, feel free to point out where i said atrocities...anyone with basic reading skills can clearly see that wasn't my point, but in your cynical little world, where being a goomba, selling drugs and being a prostitute are more honorable professions than joining the military, i can see where you may have been confused. you were very much being judgemental sir,or m'am...whatever you may be, and you continue to prove it with posts like this. i doubt you know 3 or 400 people, much less 3 or 400 people who have enlisted. as for your snide little hannity comment...that speaks for itself...grade school remarks. there was a lot of thought into that one, i'll wager. i'll sink to your level now...your post was limbaugh'esque....ahhhh....that feels so good. so whats your next song and dance act...tap dancing on tillmans grave perhaps?

edited for grammur.....

[treepig]

182. sadly, your enticing suggestion is against the rules

(but i bet you knew that and were just trying to trick me and my grade-school intellect into being banned!)

btw, it's you who raised clinton's use of the military. in part, he used the military to enforce sanctions that killed (a conservatively estimated) 500,000 iraqi children

see http://www.harpers.org/CoolWar.html?pg=1

i find that to be an atrocious atrocity.

you apparently find it heroic

to each his own, i suppose

[rppper]

204. lets go ahead and blame all of cubas ills....

on every american president since kennedy then, while your on a roll and all, and since we have had an ongoing embargo on them since the early 60's. once again, just like you have in every single post on this thread, you paint me with a wide brush...you have called me a freeper...of course in more words since you're so smart and all...all based on ASSUMPTIONS...more on that later...

BTW....my statement about clintons military was that he wasn't shy about using it, just smarter...no more, no less, word for word. where on gods green earth you came up with idea that i supported each and every military move clinton made is beyond me....you ASSUMED it, just like you ASSUMED that everyone who joins the military has a case of bloodlust and wants to be john rambo. just like you ASSUMED tillman joined the service to kill and kill and kill. you make a lot of assumptions, yet you fail over and over again to back them up. you make assumptions about people you have never met with little or no information about them.

here are your very words...."anybody who volunteered for military service during mr. bush's administration (who's only purpose is to engage in perpetual war, heck, even the onion predicted that with spot-on accuracy) has got to be regarded as a villian, not a hero."

another assumption....

you seem to be of the opinion that anyone with a differing opinion than yours is a bloodthirsty, warmongering baby killer...again an assumption. quite frankly, your thought process very much mimics that of our friends on the other side of the isle. it must be nice up there on your little pedestal, looking down at everyone else you dont see eye to eye with casting judgement upon them.

feel free to post whatever else you want to about me. this is my last answer to you. i am not going to defend my positions to you or anyone else. i know who and what i am, i know what i have done to support my views, which are very much to the left BTW. i am a vet, a democrat and a proud liberal.

i don't support this war and have felt it was the wrong thing to do since the begining, and i find very little about this war heroic. the difference between you and i is that i will not piss on a soldiers grave for enlisting and doing something, however misguided you feel it was, that he thought was the right thing to do.

patt tillman walked the walk, just like any others who enlisted after 911. he isnt a hero, but he served his country and paid for it with his life, just like the 700 or so others. i think it was honorable, but tragic. you called them villans, so it is up to you to prove how and why they are, not i. there are some villans out there for sure, but most are doing their jobs and getting killed for it. you, sir, are slapping the messenger not the sender.

take this however you will, because i realize this sounds freeperish, but those soldiers do defend your right and gonzaleses right to pound away whatever opinions you have on a keyboard and make it public. but i also know, for a fact, that they can not give their opinions like you and gonzales can...they can follow orders or be jailed...plain and simple. perhaps if you had enlisted and served you would know this, but that was your choice and i respect that.

[treepig]

206. you apparently didn't read the article i posted

if you did, i have no idea how you could possible equate the usa's treatment of cuba with that of iraq.

and please enlighten me on just exactly how the u.s. military, and their actions in the middle east and central asia, enables my freedom of speech? btw, i've been in contact with a few people from nations who don't have a military presence outside their country murdering innocent civilians, and - strangely enough - these people just like me can sit at their keyboards and pound away whatever opinions they have and make them public. how can that be based on your concluding statements?


now, lets go through a list of countries with more "freedom of the press" than the usa (it boggles the mind how these countries could even be aware of the concept of "freedom of the press" without pat tillman and his ilk overseas murdering innocent civilians, but let's put that aside for a moment and consider the list):

1(tie) Denmark
1(tie) Iceland
1(tie) Sweden
4(tie) Belgium
4(tie) Finland
4(tie) Norway
4(tie)Switzerland
8 New Zealand
9 (tie) Palau
9 (tie) St. Lucia
11 (tie) Liechtenstein
11 (tie) Luxembourg
11 (tie) Marshall Islands
11 (tie) The Netherlands
15 (tie) Andorra
15 (tie) Monaco
15 (tie) United States

http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/pressurvey.htm

ok, i'm off to do some research on how all the countries above the usa maintain such a convincing facade of either (a) freedom or (b) not having overseas-imperialism-enforced-by-a-GDP-draining-military.

according to you, (a) is not possible without (b) so there seems to be a disconnect here - but, once again, i'll try to figure out how what's going on here and will get back to you.

[bluestateguy]

93. Edit of previous post (Please read before replying to previous post)

The server is not letting me edit the previous post.

Text should read:

"I would remind people here that we have a prominent DUer here, Mari333, who has a stepson in Iraq, in a very dangerous place."

[Tinoire]

99. Sorry. TOTALLY different animals

Tillman went over there with revenge in his heart.

Mari333's son was called up and ordered over there.

HUGE difference. One is a kid who got caught at a bad time & is doing his job, the other one is a freeper who knowingly, willingly, signed up to kill.

[OC_dem]

129. How can you know

"Tillman went over there with revenge in his heart."

is true, who do you think you are George Bush?

[treepig]

164. why else would he have been motivated to join the military

if he actually cared about ending terrorism and making the world a safer place, he would not have joined the u.s. military.

he would have joined an organization dedicated to working for peace and justice, thus removing the root causes of terrorism.

instead he joined the u.s. military, who along with the cia, started the sequence of events that led to 9-11.

carter started the unholy alliance with the mujahideen

In a candid 1998 interview, Zbigniew Brezinski, Carter's national security adviser, confirmed that U.S. aid to the rebels began before the invasion:

"it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.... We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would....

That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.... The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War."
The Carter administration was well aware that in backing the mujahideen it was supporting forces with reactionary social goals, but this was outweighed by its own geopolitical interests. In August 1979, a classified State Department report bluntly asserted that "the United States' larger interest...would be served by the demise of the Taraki-Amin regime, despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reforms in Afghanistan." That same month, in a stunning display of hypocrisy, State Department spokesperson Hodding Carter piously announced that the U.S. "expect the principle of nonintervention to be respected by all parties in the area, including the Soviet Union."

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_CIA_Taliban.html

then reagan, bush 41, and clinton sustained and internationalized the mujahideen, giving them the wherewithall to enact 9-11:

It is well documented that America played a major role in creating and sustaining the Mujahideen, which included Osama bin Laden’s Office of Services set up to recruit volunteers from overseas. Between 1985 and 1992, US officials estimate that 12,500 foreign fighters were trained in bomb-making, sabotage and guerrilla warfare tactics in Afghan camps that the CIA helped to set up.

Yet America’s role in backing the Mujahideen a second time in the early and mid-1990s is seldom mentioned — largely because very few people know about it, and those who do find it prudent to pretend that it never happened. Following the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 and the collapse of their puppet regime in 1992, the Afghan Mujahideen became less important to the United States; many Arabs, in the words of the journalist James Buchan, were left stranded in Afghanistan ‘with a taste for fighting but no cause’. It was not long before some were provided with a new cause. From 1992 to 1995, the Pentagon assisted with the movement of thousands of Mujahideen and other Islamic elements from Central Asia into Europe, to fight alongside Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs.

The Bosnia venture appears to have been very important to the rise of Mujahideen forces, to the emergence of today’s cross-border Islamic terrorists who think nothing of moving from state to state in the search of outlets for their jihadist mission. In moving to Bosnia, Islamic fighters were transported from the ghettos of Afghanistan and the Middle East into Europe; from an outdated battleground of the Cold War to the major world conflict of the day; from being yesterday’s men to fighting alongside the West’s favoured side in the clash of the Balkans. If Western intervention in Afghanistan created the Mujahideen, Western intervention in Bosnia appears to have globalised it.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ONE309A.html

god only knows what sequence of event the current afghanistan and iraqi adventures have set in motion. there'll not likely to pleasant for my children, or yours, however. but, by all means, let's keep on referring to the enablers of future attacks as heros- we sure wouldn't want to look bad to all those legions of lurking freepers!

[LETSGETFREAKY]

102. here here

All of us should support the troops and work to get them home. Point blank

[bobbyboucher]

91. Tillman died in the desert because

he was making decisions with his reptilian brain. Had he given his human brain time to regain control of his thought process, he might still be alive.

[Name removed]

108. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[FlemingsGhost]

112. It would be long, now.

Granite or marble?

[Christ was Socialist]

94. I would agree with the writer

if it was iraq he was in. Any soldier that signs up now, shou;dn't be regarded as a hero, they are idiots. The troops over there now just got caught up in bush's lie. However Afghanistan had justification, even though i don't beleive in it.

[demdave]

109. Ah, winning hearts and minds of American VOTERS!!

Be sure when you spout this venom at the general public to not only call them sheeple but also tell them that you support Kerry because he believes as you do. That should put us over the top in Nov.

P.S. If I need to label this sarcasm, it would be wasted on you.

[FlemingsGhost]

113. It ain't a thread until demdave chides us all.

That's sarcasm, dave. Just in case...

[playahata1]

114. Are you directing this at ME?

I posted this article because apparently some people are not willing to let the Tillman story die.

Furthermore, why should we be so concerned about what the other side thinks about us? Besides, I am not necessarily a Kerry supporter.

Also, why should I or anyone else deify anyone who participates in an exercise I believe to be wrong?

[demdave]

119. The original poster is only the messenger

My post addressed the general tone of the student's opinion piece and with many of those posting here. If you think you fit in the group I was attempting to address then read it and take it that way.


As for your second question, alienating more moderate Dems and the undecided is not the best way to win votes. I was under the understanding that this was a Dem site. As such, I would think that winning the Nov. election would be the number one priority. Calling people in our armed forces baby killers and Rambo's is not the way to accomplish this goal. Neither is telling people how they are ignorant sheeple. I see it here all the time and it is counter productive. Venom and hatred will not win the election. Ideas and energy that others see as positive is.

But then I guess we will see in Nov. won't we.

[Toucano]

110. Why is this one person's opinion national news?

You have to wonder.

[playahata1]

115. See my reply, #114.

n/t

[Toucano]

116. I didn't intend to fault you for posting it.

I question the media's desire to report the controversial opinion of one person when they cannot be relied on to report facts and actual news.

The fact that you share that opinion isn't relevent.

The author is entitled to have their opinion published. But, how often does ESPN report on the opinions published in university newspapers?

[playahata1]

117. Sports Illustrated has also gotten hold of this kid's op-ed piece.

There was an earlier (locked) thread that used SI's version.

As a regular ESPN viewer, though, I think you may have something there. The network usually relies on media outlets such as the Associated Press, SI, major newspapers, and the sports organizations themselves.

[hughee99]

120. The writer makes us look bad

I agree that he has every write to let everyone know what he thinks... and I have every write to think he's an idiot. How is is that Pat Tillman is not a hero but John Kerry is? If all of the soldiers who die "get what they deserve" why should we be in a hurry to bring them home? I applaud anyone who is willing to stand up for what they believe in, especially when it could cost them their life. I think this article will just be used to paint the peace movement in a bad light. I hope that he isn't invited to speak at any rallies. While the crowd may (or may not, depending on where he is) be happy to hear him, you can be sure that the most idiotic statement he makes will be on the news.

[FlemingsGhost]

122. "Us"? The writer speaks for himself.

When did Rene become the voice of the peace movement?

[Muddleoftheroad]

124. When the column was published

And everybody realized what an idiot the author was.

[Name removed]

121. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[FlemingsGhost]

123. This is sad.

Apparently, "Intellectual immaturity" is contagious.

[Moloch]

127. Here here!

Thank you! You pretty much summed up my opinion on this. His article was pretty much the intellectual equivalent of an Ann Coulter column. It made me think of the one in which she cirticised Max Cleland. It's totally disgusting how the media is all over this yet say nothing about Ann's drivel.

[Forkboy]

134. He summed up your opinion?

You describe the writer's column of "intellectual equivalent of an Ann Coulter column" yet embrace the response which is equally childish and the equivalent of one of Coulter's columns :eyes:

[napsi]

132. Thank you

I couldn't have said it better myself. Mr. Gonzalez enjoys his freedoms because of men like Tillman and all those who have died in service of this country. (whether or not you agree with the action itself).

[Forkboy]

133. That'll sway him!

rah rah rah!!

:eyes:

[Muddleoftheroad]

138. No, but a little bile directed his way might make him think twice

About what he writes next time instead of just vomiting onto the keyboard.

[Forkboy]

139. Yeah,that works so well here!

It stops people everytime!

[Muddleoftheroad]

142. People hide behind their login names here

In the real world, everybody knows who this putz really is.

[Name removed]

144. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Muddleoftheroad]

150. It's not intimidation, it's reader feedback

I got my share in my time and it never intimidated me one iota. But it IS important for journalists to get a feel for how their readers react to what they write.

[osaMABUSh]

137. Tillman is no better or worse than any other GI who died

They all have different motivations for joining. They're all heroes (at least for one day. http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Heroes-lyrics-Wallflowers/D8C42DC34223504E482568B5002B8016 )

I was a little dismayed at the god-like status everyone assigned Tillman because he was a rich, famous NFL player.

The big news over Tillman just proves, however, that the vast majority of wealthy would never even dream of serving. Tillman was certainly a great person and anomaly in this day.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

141. Thank You. Why aren't the others who die protecting America....

given the same "public honors"???

:wtf: This whole thing just reaks of the media looking for a hyped up story to tell.

:eyes:

How many other people gave up their lives to join the military and protect us???

Don't they count???

[JohnOneillsMemory]

159. Tributes become even more epitaphs. Nobody is protecting us by dying.

See my post #41.

Every time you call the fallen heroes, you bring in more die for the great lie that they are protecting their country.

Ain't no one dying for a genuinely noble reason. 100% lies and when you wax on about heroism, you bring in more fodder dying for lies and killing for lies.

So quit the fucking lying about the 'heroics' of tragic death.

It is miserable tragic fucking slaughter, not a goddamn John Wayne propaganda movie.

[MojoLoco]

171. No one is protecting us by dying???

"There were 190 acts of international terrorism in 2003, a slight decrease from the 198 attacks that occurred in 2002, and a drop of 45 percent from the level in 2001 of 346 attacks. The figure in 2003 represents the lowest annual total of international terrorist attacks since 1969..." From this State Dept. report:

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/31569.htm

[bloom]

174. Seems like increased surveillance

and intelligence gathering, security measures and such could account for such a drop.

Most of the killing/dying on our part seems to be accomplishing revenge more than protection.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

177. Those State dept. stats are bullshit. How do they define 'terrorism?'

When you throw in US government-sponsored terrorism, you add tens of thousands of innocent victims in Iraq alone. Just add the women and children US snipers killed in Fallujah and your State dept. stats go all to hell.

If you haven't done the historical research past the propaganda that Uncle Sam=Superman Jesus, then you'll never learn how the US military is used to PREVENT democracy around the world and is merely a corporate-owned private security force.

Google up General Smedley Butler and read his famous speech on exactly this horrible truth.

[Donkeyboy75]

189. Well, silly, there are TOO MANY of them

One of these stories is great for the * admin. It says to the average American "If this guy gives up everything, he MUST be doing it for a good cause." If they do it for all 800+, and we're allowed to see their coffins, Americans are going to say "WTF, a shitload of our soldiers are dying!" That's bad. :eyes:

I hope my dripping sarcasm doesn't come across as condescending. :)

[Cheswick2.0]

207. how was he protecting this country?

How exactly is anyone fighting in Iraq protecting or defending this country?

[Muddleoftheroad]

143. "Tillman was certainly a great person and anomaly in this day."

That's why he got the media coverage. He turned down millions of dollars to defend his country.

Pretty remarkable.

All of the military folks are heroes, but we can identify with him because many knew of him before he signed up.

[Cheswick2.0]

209. I don't often speak to tombstones, but..........

Defending his country? How do you defend your country when your country was/is in no danger?

[JohnLocke]

210. Hmm. Try reading the article.

He was in Afghanistan.

[mvd]

145. It's ok to not call him a hero, but..

We should respect what he did. He did die for his country, even though the cause is wrong.

[JohnLocke]

178. How was the cause wrong?

He was hunting in Afganistan for terrorists. How is that wrong?

[mvd]

213. Our government's cause, not his necessarily

I doubt it was just about stopping terrorists. We wanted a pipeline through Afghanistan.

[OC_dem]

146. I've been Amazed and more than a little saddened

by some of he things I've read in this discussion:

"Tillman had Rambo fantasies;"

Tillman was like a man who wanted to work in a firing squad;

Tillman was a dupe;

"I believe he was acting out of emotion;"

"worshipping mindless nationalism;"

"got what was coming"

“Tillman went over there with revenge in his heart.”

The simple truth is none of us will ever know why he did what he did including Rene Gonzalez, but it does say something about people who will ascribe to him the lowest possible motive rather than believing he had a positive reason for what he did. I don’t know why Pat Tillman did what he did but until someone can prove other wise I’m going to believe he did what he did out of a noble motive.

Rest in peace Pat and thank you for your service and sacrifice.

[MellowMarsh]

148. Tillman is a hero

Anyone dissing him otherwise needs to grow up.

[sniffa]

149. ah, that's my aLma mater

it does me proud.

[qazplm]

152. wow

I am absolutely amazed.

On another board I defended liberals, telling some rabid conservatives how this was just some young stupid kid spouting off, and 99% of liberals/Democrats would not agree with what he was saying.

Then I come here, and see I was apparently wrong.

Let's lay some facts out:

1. He joined after 9/11. My understanding is that when he joined, we hadnt invaded anyone yet. We knew it was Al Queda who hit us, they did take credit for it after all, there was plenty of proof they did it, no one else raised their hand and said, no wait, we did it. People on here asserting there is no proof are liberal equivalents of the Black Helicopter types. So the plain fact of the matter is, he saw our country attacked in a manner that hadnt happened since 1941 and he gave up his life of luxury and comfort and millions, and turned it in to be enlisted and protect his country.

2. The same people on here stereotyping Tillman (and by proxy pretty much any young soldier) with all sorts of name calling are the same people who lambaste those who stereotype based on race, gender or class. How is your prejudice any better or different?

3. This was a kid who was undersized and had to get by on effort his whole career. A guy who did yoga and meditation daily. Not exactly your "freeper" type.

The bottom line is, this kid had every right to say what he wanted and I will defend his right to say it. But it was stupid, poorly argued, and clearly intentionally sensational, and he deserves all of the flak he is getting. Just as he asserts Tillman "deserved" getting killed.

[lagniappe]

151. Some of you make conservatives look reasonable.

I have a few Republican friends, and I can never figure out why they would want to reelect the worst president in our history. Looking at some of the responses, I am reminded why - because he isn't a Democrat.

Pat Tillman wanted to serve his country - the same way that John Kerry did, and George W. Bush didn't. He paid for his service with his life.

It's funny. You can say the most hateful things on this board about soldiers or christians, and it will be tolerated. However, if you say anything that has even a remote whiff of sexism or homophobia, I'll bet the people criticizing Tillman would be offended.

[ropi]

153. harsh...

this graduate student's article is extremely harsh. i am surprised that the editor of the paper allowed it to go to press without at least having a dialogue with the author.

i think if the author concentrated on the erasure of the 'average soldier' by the media and focused on how the media placed the Tillman loss into the spotlight--it would have been more effective. that's just my 2cents though...

[hughee99]

155. Many more effective stories available

There were many other angles the author could have used, but based on what he already wrote, I would guess he has no more sympathy for the "average soldier" then he does for Tillman. If you're looking for a better story, you'll probably have to look for a better writer.

[fujiyama]

160. Yeah that's the way I see it

While this current war in Iraq is a fraud, and anyone that volunteered to specifically fight it is either pretty uninformed, a freeper, or both, they still deserve our respect.

As for those that volunteered to fight after 9/11, I really have the utmost respect for them.

Our nation wass attacked that day, and military action was justified in response. Pat Tillman believed he was defending his country, and regardless of his political beliefs and voting habbits, he died fighting for his country, and that deserves respect.

The article written is shallow and immature. He had the right to say whatever the hell he wanted, but that doesn't mean I agree.

Instead he could have written that there is too much celebrity worship in this nation, and that it is unfortunate how the media doesn't give everyone else the respect they deserve as well.

Instead he smeared Tillman's character and speculated about his emotional state, which was completely unecessary and disgusting.

Whether you want to view those that fight in the military as heroes or not, you should atleast give them the respect they deserve and in this case, the writer did not do that.

[Bleacher Creature]

156. This is just another example . . . .

of the thugs in the GOP latching onto something that shouldn't be political in any way, shape or form, and using it for their own purposes. They did it with the flag and they are doing it with Pat Tillman. Listen to any of these creeps on the radio for 5 minutes and I guarantee you that they will find someway to work his death in into one of their vicious diatribes. And in the end, it makes you feel guilty for doing such innocuous things as having a flag on your car, lapel, etc., or simply admiring a guy who sacrificed himself for something he believed in.

It's wrong, but so are we if we fall into this trap and let them control the debate.

[Muddleoftheroad]

161. Sorry, but no

Look at the many nasty responses to this thread. This column does indeed represent some of the views of the radical left. They latched onto it because this asswipe wrote it. They will make hay from it because others will side with this little boy.

[Cheswick2.0]

208. Bravo DU administrators

Muddle the Freeper is finally gone. Good ridance to right wing rubish. I hate to say I told you so.....

[RetroLounge]

212. Fucking-A right! About time, I say...

Get thee back to FR Muddle, you won't be missed here...

RL

[Flubadubya]

222. Amen and Halleluja!!

When "Muddle" first appeared upon the scene, I truly tried to have some rational and logical conversations wtih him. I finally gave that up. I then went to simply reading his responses to others, but quickly tired of that effort in futility.

Oh, by the way... anybody remember "David" who called the Mike Malloy show all the time, and was the only freeper Mike would abide (just so he could taunt him).

Do you suppose David and MoR are one in the same? What a hoot if that were so.

Glad you're gone Mud.

[silverpatronus]

165. my take...

i disagree that tillman was a rambo-like idiot. nobody knows what he was thinking when he signed up. i have no idea if he was a hero. contrary to belief, not every serviceman or servicewoman is a hero. as a matter of fact, some of them are villains. i have no way of knowing which tillman was. i do however have to agree that because he was a football star, his death is getting a ridiculous amount of press. i'm sorry, but his status as a football player does not put him above the hundreds of other dead american servicemen and women. each and every one of them i'm sure meant something to someone, and their deaths crushed someone. and i find it incredibly hypocritical of the administration and the media to hype him up, so to speak, while not only ignoring, but deliberately concealing the identities and sacrifices of the rest of the dead and wounded servicepeople.

[Loonman]

167. I've never supported any of the Bush wars

But this Gonzalez kid is a mealy-mouthed, arrogant little prick.

[Barkley]

168. Tillman is a great recruiting tool. Its good to see someone object -n/t

[SideshowScott]

176. This is the type of thing that HURTS the Peace Movement dearly!

I'm not saying that Gonzalez did not have the right to write what he did BUT this is the type of the thing that hurts the Peace movement.
How is this helping? Who is this helping?
Is it helping the cause of peace when we say that an American got whats coming to him because he served? When I read that line it reminded me of a right wing radio host that said a woman who was raped got what was coming to her because of the style of clothes she wore.
I THOUGHT we marched because we did not want our troops to die and we cared about the safety of our fellow man and women or was it nothing but a far left circle jerk further alienating the rest of America and doing nothing to help our cause? I know it was the first but people like this are only doing the work of the Right wing for them.
This type of thing only helps the ones who hate us and does nothing to promote peace and understanding when they say that someone deserved to die.
I disagree with everything Gonzalez said. It was crass and way way out of line. My thinking is that the person who let this get published is a Bush Supporter who used it to make us look bad.
I am an American first, Anti-war Democrat second and Pat Tillman Was an law abiding patriotic American he should be treated as such.

[hughee99]

179. I'm not sure about that

Having attended UMASS and still living in the area, I can say with at least some confidence that the editor of the newspaper is probably NOT a * supporter. I would say that it's much more likely that the editor was a strong supporter of free speech, and let Gonzalez write whatever he wanted in this editorial. I can look into it though.

[SideshowScott]

181. Cool. Yeah look into that thanks.

I'm all for free speech and while I reluctantly accept that he had a right to be heard. I still think it was in bad form and taste for such an article to be published. It was way way over the line and it sounds like something a right winger would say if it was a Liberal who died.
Like I said it reminded me of the Right Winger who said the woman deserved to be raped because of the clothes she wore.

[OC_dem]

190. UMass Student Apologizes To Tillman Family For Column

http://www.local6.com/news/3252841/detail.html

[OC_dem]

191. Paul Begala - It's an outrage

You can ignore what Tucker says, but it does set up what Paul's response.


CARLSON: Well, those of you who don't live in the state of Massachusetts may have missed a recent issue of "The Daily Collegian," the newspaper of UMass Amherst.

Yesterday's edition included a column by a left-wing graduate student named Rene Gonzalez. The column was entitled: "Pat Tillman Is Not a Hero. He Got What Was Coming to Him." Yes, that Pat Tillman, the professional football player who left behind his wife and a multimillion dollar contract to fight America's war on terrorism. He was killed in action in Afghanistan last week.

His death, Rene Gonzalez writes, was well deserved. Tillman died in the service of -- quote -- "America is No. 1, frat boy, propaganda bull, just another instrument of the Bush-led U.S. imperialism." Well, that's the view from the liberal left in Massachusetts. Maybe you agree with it. Maybe you don't. Either way, feel free to e-mail "The Daily Collegian" to express how you do feel. Get a pen. Here's their address, [e-mail].

BEGALA: What's that address again?

CARLSON: [e-mail].

BEGALA: I'm glad you raised this. It's an outrage. Pat Tillman was a hero. He was serving America. He was fighting terrorists. That's not the view of the left. You know that. It's the view of one crackpot, who by the way has the freedom to speak because heroes like Pat Tillman fought for

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0404/29/cf.01.html

[treepig]

195. good point paul begala!

"It's the view of one crackpot, who by the way has the freedom to speak because heroes like Pat Tillman fought for"

exactly, if the following afghan terrorists hadn't been stopped in their tracks







there's no way i'd have the freedom to be here posting this message today!

[bkcc]

194. shameful

This article is in incredibly bad taste.
Period.

Whether you agree with the war or not, this guy gave his life for his country.

[dudeness]

200. Sorry friends.

but in my view, it precisely this type of "hero" mentality that makes the US the most dangerous nation on the face of the planet today..

[JohnLocke]

211. Yes, how dare we search for terrorists!

We should have left Afganistan and the Taliban alone! </sarcasm>

[dudeness]

216. so tell me john, have you found any yet?

or did they just move to Iraq..or do you think oil may be a motive in all this??

[treepig]

219. the problem is that when we found 'real' terrorists in afghanistan

it turned out they all worked for us (via pakistan's isi) so we had to escort them back home, see

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?020128fa_FACT

for details.



(yeah, like rummy didn't know that before we went over there)

[Darranar]

220. Actually, yes....

should the US be attacked for refusing to turn over Kissinger?

Or Reagan?

Or Negroponte?

Or Bush, for that matter?

The war in Afghanistan didn't stop Al-Qaeda - all it did was slaughter thousands of innocent people.

[SarahK]

223. A Better Critique of Tillman Worship

Here's a critical article of the Tillman worship that's much more articulate and sensible than Gonzalez's:
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/April2004/MickeyZ0426.htm

The same publication features an article by a retired US Air Force Colonel who calls the Bush administration treasonous. I wonder if all these people who say that Tillman died fighting for "freedom and democracy" will be as critical of a dissenting voice as the author:
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/April2004/Bowman0427.htm

And a really excellent article on warrior worship in the US, "Sleepwalking to Fallujah":
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/April2004/Bageant0429.htm