Pat Tillman hated Bush, read Chomsky, believed the Iraq war was illegal...

[girl gone mad]

According to the SF Chronicle article from today.

Yet other Tillman family members are less reluctant to show Tillman’s unique character, which was more complex than the public image of a gung-ho patriotic warrior. He started keeping a journal at 16 and continued the practice on the battlefield, writing in it regularly. (His journal was lost immediately after his death.) Mary Tillman said a friend of Pat’s even arranged a private meeting with Chomsky, the antiwar author, to take place after his return from Afghanistan — a meeting prevented by his death. She said that although he supported the Afghan war, believing it justified by the Sept. 11 attacks, “Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war.”

Baer, who served with Tillman for more than a year in Iraq and Afghanistan, told one anecdote that took place during the March 2003 invasion as the Rangers moved up through southern Iraq.

“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”

Another soldier in the platoon, who asked not to be identified, said Pat urged him to vote for Bush’s Democratic opponent in the 2004 election, Sen. John Kerry.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/25/MNGD7ETMNM1.DTL

[pansypoo53219]

1. who wants to bet

that the army that diary.

[MADem]

33. They likely burnt it when they burnt his uniform, unfortunately nt

[KingFlorez]

2. That ought to burn the Freepers

I just want to rub it in their faces

[Ron Mexico]

34. They'll just deny it.

I've tried it already on a Freeper in my office, and his response was "come back to me when you've got a reliable source on that bullshit."

[ComerPerro]

38. Exactly. For them, even family members are "reliable" enough.

But somehow a drunken, cokehead sleazebag like Bush is... Even when he is proven to be lying.

[oasis]

3. I'm sure Pat's dad and mom share the same disgust for Rummy for lying

to them about the events surrounfing his death.

[Wetzelbill]

7. can you imagine somebody lying about your son's death like that?

and the way they used his integrity and personal sense of honor to further their flag-waving narcotic indoctrination? The man was a special human being, not anything like these gung-ho chicken hawks. Pat Tillman was too smart and too classy to be a Bush supporter. No effing way would he like that guy.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Makes me kind of wonder how friendly the friendly fire was.

How would the Powers That Be react if they knew their poster-boy was ready to speak out against the Iraq invasion?

The guy had principles - he hung up a contract for millions to put on a uniform. How un-Republican can you get?

Makes me sad all over again.

[Lex]

15. Precisely what I thought too. nt

[Old and In the Way]

16. I wonder, too.

NFL football jock who did his tour.....coming out against the war? Maybe working with Kerry? This administration's worst nightmare. His "lost diary" is another red flag. I always wondered bout that whole friendly fire situation. It happens, but....

[Horse with no Name]

37. The guy was a President-in-the-making

Educated--well loved--put country before money--war hero?

Can't have any of those running around can we?

[girl gone mad]

43. I hate to admit it, I had the same thought.

chilling.

[Joe Chi Minh]

45. Even going to meet Chomsky on his return!

Public Enemy no 1. - at one time anyway.

[blm]

49. Well, Bush purged all the CIA agents he thought worked with Kerry, so it

would be no surprise to me that BushInc caught wind of what Tillman was saying to other soldiers.

Friendly fire?

Friendly to the Bush campaign?

[yurbud]

24. trickle down fragging

[itzamirakul]

31. If he really was against Bush...

then the "friendly fire" was on purpose.

Like Aaron Broussard said about NOLA on Meet the Press, it was "bureaucratic murder."

[rateyes]

41. My thoughts, exactly...

He was killed by friendly fire...and, there's been a cover-up of the details. I hope this bit of news gets out far and wide.

[Mr_Spock]

52. My first thought

He may have felt he could speak out about his feelings.

So they offed him.

Wouldn't surprise me one bit.

[tuvor]

5. I hope Ted Rall reads the article.

Rall's reduced Tillman to being merely a sucker for bush.

[bluestateguy]

13. Ted Rall is an asshole

I truly believe that he is enjoying the fact that the US is mired in a clusterfuck of a war in Iraq.

[pa28]

18. Thanks for posting.

A great lesson in this.

[alarcojon]

26. Rall owes the Tillman family one gigantic apology. n/t

[msanthrope]

44. Yep. I hope he has the character to do so. n/t

[Kolesar]

32. The points he chooses to make are off-base and his artwork stinks

[RandomKoolzip]

39. Ted Rall is so much more than this one cartoon.

He may have been off-base here, but so were most of us when we first learned of Pat Tillman's death. All the facts weren't available to him nor to us at that time...this "Tillman was a hero of the left" stuff is only from hindsight.

This is the only cartoon I've seen from Ted Rall that I DIDN'T agree with. Rall is actually a brilliant commentator and "Wake Up, You're Liberal!" is definitely worth buying.

[tuvor]

47. If as you say, "all the facts weren't available" to Rall...

..he shouldn't have broadcast his ill-informed opinion. A certain amount of responsibility comes along with having a soapbox like his.

I like a lot of his work, but this was a really boneheaded move for him.

[roguevalley]

50. I would never celebrate or criticize someone killed in this war. My

boy was in Kosovo. If someone had done that to him, I would stalk them.

[Kagemusha]

6. Sad when we ought to cynically assume such things.

I didn't in this case, but maybe I ought to have.

I keep comparing this stuff to the propaganda in Starship Troopers (the movies). That stuff doesn't look so visionary now. We're living it.

[Wetzelbill]

9. off point, but I love your SN

I'm a big Kurosawa fan, that was a great movie. IMO, one of the best opening shots in movie history. He really lets his actors act.

[girl gone mad]

12. I remember defending him here after his death.

Intuition, I suppose.

I just figured that anyone who would turn down a multi-million dollar football contract to fight in Afghanistan couldn't be a Republican. At least, not one of the Bush/Cheney/Rove/Rush/Delay chicken-hawk ilk.

[RoyGBiv]

22. I remember those threads ...

They were awful. It was the closest I've ever come to just giving up on people entirely. So many self-styled peace activists and lovers of humanity were so willing to celebrate the death of a fellow human being simply because he was a "jock" (as if that matters at all) they assumed was a wing-nut. And should it even have mattered if he had been a wing-nut?

Anyway, I'm glad this is coming out, but reading it tonight brought to mind some harsh feelings toward a few people I've managed to bury.

[WilliamPitt]

8. Marked

for consideration when I get back from DC.

[roguevalley]

51. I suppose Rall took one look at his soldier persona and drew a

knee jerk. He's wrong and he has to come clean. If he doesn't, then he's a coward for marking a man so wrongly.

[RoyGBiv]

10. Lost diary ...

My, my, how convenient.

I genuinely hope some of the people who ridiculed Pat Tillman when he died, rather than focusing such ridicule on the uses to which he death was being put, read this thread and look deep inside themselves at their own prejudices.

[FightingIrish]

11. He seems much more heroic in this context. I had no idea

that he was much more than a gung ho jock. He was really the kind of person our armed forces should be all about.

[w13rd0]

19. Read about his funeral...

...and heck, interviews with friends in High School...

Not a stereotypical jock at all.

[jmowreader]

35. Oh, the funeral was the best

His brother got up and said Pat wasn't with Jesus, he was fucking dead. In those very words.

We also heard about the baptism Pat went to. IIRC the Tillman family was mostly, or all, boys, a lot of them weren't married, and Pat decided there should be more women at a baptism. So he came dressed as one.

Almost makes me wish I'd have followed the Arizona Cardinals when he was playing. That was one hell of a guy.

[bluestateguy]

14. I feel bad for the post 9/11 enlistees

They really thought and expected that they would be going off to battle with the real terrorists who attacked us on 9/11/01. Instead, most of them ended up in Iraq.

[RoyGBiv]

23. Me too ...

I have a friend, a promising young historian who brought to mind a modern incarnation of CV Woodward with a more progressive bent, who signed up a week after 9/11. He felt he owed it to his country. He believed his country would be sending him off to fight a tangible enemy.

He's currently serving his second tour in Iraq and is now a bitter man with little thought of the future. He's given up his goal to be a historian, having left graduate school to fight for his country prior to defending his thesis. He says he's not even sure he believes his thesis any longer, which had centered on US international relations and the positive long-term effects of its historical policies.

[andino]

17. tag

[Captain Hilts]

20. "A city in Southern Iraq?" I thought he was in Afghanistan. nt

[Brother Buzz]

21. He first served in Iraq...

then Afganistan

[tom_paine]

25. Bushevik Op: Frag a "disloyal enemy", steal his diary

then wave his bloody shirt and use his corpse as a propaganda tool.

That's your Bushevik "trickle-down" morality, for you.

RIP Pat Tillman.

[NightOwwl]

27. I am not a tin-foiler.

I've suspected for a long time that his death was no accident. The fact that his diary conveniently "disappeared" after his death pretty much convinces me it was pre-meditated murder.

[enigmatic]

28. I lived in Phoenix in the 90's

While Pate was playing for ASU and the Cardinals; this stuff was known to his friends and fans (which I was one), and I'm glad that everyone else knows now as well.

Pat was truly a person that was someone to admire; a true original. He was a Hero, at least to me.

[fujiyama]

29. There were some people here

that agreed with Rall's take on Tilman.

I hope people are not as quick to judgement of those that serve in the military. Many that signed up did genuinely want to serve their country.

It's not their fault that Bush sent them off on some idiotic, unjustified invasion.

[Cocoa]

30. will Ann Coulter change her mind about Tillman?

who knows more about American masculinity than Ann? :-)

His killing was widely reported by the media, including conservative commentators such as Ann Coulter, who called him “an American original — virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be.”

[bpilgrim]

36. Another Great American, used and abused by this corrupt regime

what a terrible waste and abuse of our nobel brothers and sisters :cry:

where is the OUTRAGE by our 'leaders' at this ILLEGAL and IMMORAL fucking war :argh:

thanks for sharing this important story :toast:

peace

[Presstitutes]

40. Kick

:kick:

[indeman]

42. TIllman's views should be HUGE news. START REPORTING IT MSM!

Considering how much the Iraq war propaganda pushers used his death and image to promote their cause, and how much this was put front and center in the media, its time that that newspapers and networks prepare headline "correction" articles that identify Tillman's true beliefs.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

46. It would be a good thing if his mom joined up with Cindy.

Good for them, good for us.

[DinahMoeHum]

48. And these Freeper/College Repuke assholes think they're BETTER ???

than Pat Tillman???????

Pat Tillman is my two word/one name response for anyone who says he supports the war but doesn't want to go out there to fight it and replace a 2-or-more-tour-of-duty trooper out there.







:patriot: