From my movie review in Taki's Magazine
The Tillman Story is a documentary about Pat Tillman, the NFL player who, following 9/11, turned down a $3.6 million Arizona Cardinals offer to enlist as a private in the U.S. Army, then died in Afghanistan in 2004. The film has elicited critical praise but not much media hype.
How come? As Afghanistan evolves into Mr. Obama’s War, antiwar sentiment is at a low ebb among the press.
In reality, The Tillman Story, directed by Amir Bar-Lev and narrated by Josh Brolin, is a lesser example of the documentarian’s art. Yet, it’s worth sitting through because of the light it shines on what’s becoming America’s forever war. It also affords us a glimpse of that mysterious hero who refused to do interviews about why he chose to fight for his country in an era when so few of the noblesse have been obliging.
The Tillman Story is most striking whenever Pat and his giant jaw are on screen. Like an American hero from the pre-Muhammad Ali era, Tillman wanted fame, but he wanted to earn it, and without boasting, without PR. ...
Viewers can infer much from The Tillman Story about the futility of what Kipling called “the savage wars of peace.” Since the Gulf War of 1991, a sizable fraction of American fatalities have been due to “friendly fire” because the American advantage in firepower is so overwhelming. (U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan fired in anger an average of about a quarter of a million bullets per day.) And U.S. marksmanship is lethally good. (The Army coroner who autopsied Tillman’s bullet-riddled corpse refused to certify that he’d been killed by hostile fire because the Taliban can’t shoot that straight.)
Read the whole thing there and comment upon it below.
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43 comments:
LOL, and building 7 collapsed on its own.
"The main difference in willingness to acknowledge errors I’ve noticed between the Army and the various marketing corporations I worked for is that marketing mistakes less often kill people and break things."
A friend of mine was in the invasion of Iraq with the Army. After the Shock And Awe on Baghdad, their first job was to bury all the civilian corpses before they were caught on camera. "Yeah, they were pretty pissed-off about that" he told me, referring to the Iraqi fathers who didn't get to give their kids a proper burial.
Please review Franzen's Freedom for TakiMag. Or anywhere, but I figure Taki'd be the place.
What a wonderful political candidate he would have made. Looked like a cartoon superhero, unquestionable patriotism, unquestionable bravery, even the athletic credentials to attract sports fans. And anybody who would give up a 3.6 million dollar contract to join the Rangers would have been incorruptible in office.
He was too masculine to be a liberal, but he was so appealing he probably could have come out for reparations for slavery and still retained the white vote.
How sad. He joined the war out of idealism but it turned out that the country he thought he was fighting for didn't exist. Everyone from his army comrades to the politicians was cowardly and corrupt.
He should have taken that football contract; he'd have ended up much better off. The government would have liked to utilize him as a propaganda poster boy but things got messy, just like the attempted lionization of Jessica Lynch didn't pan out. What are they fighting there about anyway, I seem to have forgotten. Oh yeah, thats right, it's to further women's rights.
"He was too masculine to be a liberal,"
You don't watch the news much, do you? I think he was too "masculine" to ba a "conservative."
"He was too masculine to be a liberal"...... so true
They are now fighting to stop the rampant pederasty going on in Afghanistan
My brother was over there for a year and that was all he could talk about. 11 year old boys dressed as Brittney Spears.
He often times pulled aside some of the Pashtun warriors and said to them about their rampant sodomy......"You fellas have a lot of growing up to do, I'll tell you that. Ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. Can you believe these characters? Way out of line. Way out of line. Have a good mind to go to the Captain about this. You know what hurts the most is the... the lack of respect. You know? That's what hurts the most. Except for the... Except for the other thing. That hurts the most. But the lack of respect hurts the second most."
Didn't work- they never saw the film.
Dan in DC
He joined the war out of idealism but it turned out that the country he thought he was fighting for didn't exist.
My anti-semitic credentials are getting to be about as good as anyone's in the paleo-verse, but you guys are simply nuts if you think that we aren't at war with Islam.
Under Islam, you are either:
1) An infidel slave in Dar al-Islam who is paying the Jizya [the tax on infidels], or
2) An infidel in Dar al-Harb who is fighting for his life, or
3) Dead.
So your choices are death, slavery, or fighting.
You choose.
21 american soldiers killed in afghanistan in the last 2 days: the US television media does not want to know anything about it. didn't happen, nothing to see, obama is commander in chief, not sending photographers to cover those caskets coming back on a plane.
in gun nut news (well not really news since gun people talk about this stuff all the time) the US army really has to get away from 5.56x45 and go to something bigger. it just doesn't work that well for war.
the average soldier in the US army does NOT shoot all that well, better than the average soldier in a third world unit, but the army accounts for the average US soldier not being a good shot. all the infantry guys who get the better weapons are better shots though, and the best guys are among the best shooters in any military. it takes 7.62x51 to hit anything in afghanistan anyway and only the shooters get those weapons. the M240 and M2 are pretty accurate at 800 meters for any trained guy, you can really put lead down range in a hurry and on target with those.
some british sniper killed two afghanis at a distance of 1.5 miles using .338 lapua.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Harrison_(sniper)
this might be a good topic for steve: differences in vision between groups. do northern europeans have better average distance vision, and could this be evolutionary, caused by pressure on vision genes for hunting with long distance weapons? did the introduction of the bow cause proliferation of better vision genes?
and in the opposite direction, half of all humans in the US now seem to have to wear glasses or contacts - there's no way this many people had impaired vision 400 years ago. has technology enabled people with weak vision to survive and reproduce?
Steve, I know trashing neocon's and their disastrous foreign policy ideas is one of your main thangs, but beating that dead horse when it comes to the Pat Tillman story is misguided at best. Even the most hard-headed foreign policy realist would have invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 if only to unleash a brief but devastating punitive lesson. Thus Pat Tillman would have likely met the same fate had deranged neocons not been in charge.
My takeway from the The Tillman Story is that this is just another attempt to undermine traditional values by fabricating a conspiracy where none existed in order to trash the armed forces. Pat Tillman died in an accident; does this somewhat deflate his heroic gesture? Sure, but any director with even 1 semester of film school under his belt would know how to edit that narrative to still produce a rousing, patriotic biopic. A non-liberal director would also understand the generals' reasons for not wanting word of what really happened to get out lest it demoralize the troops, and treat that sympathetically. But what we have here are SWPLs marinated in the 60's paranoid style who think that any institution that is not as open and free-wheeling as a hippie commune must somehow be sinister and evil.
I'm retired military and I would disown my son if he entered the service. It's like the Asian guy who shot all those people in Binghamton, NY said -- "America sucks".
America’s forever war
Why would you say that? There is a Sci Fi classic called the Forever War but that war went on for centuries.
Europe had their Thirty Year's War in Germany and the Hundred Year's War in France. Some historians call what we term WWI and WWI as the Second Thirty years War (1914 - 1945). The Cold War lasted from about 1917 to 1987 so maybe we should call it the Seventy Years War.
We are still at war with North Korea making that war about sixty years. The balance of the evidence seems to be that significant conflicts last around a half century.
Victor Davis Hanson argues in one of his latest books "The Father of Us All" that Western democracies with TV cameras on the battlefield seem to have no taste for the kind of knock out blow that demolishes and humiliates the enemy such that they turn peaceable.
We bombed out the heart of Germany and Japan and they became peaceable democracies. George Bush senior hesitated in the First Iraq War so his son had to fight the Second Iraq War.
We are being very circumspect in Afghanistan. We don't use our most effective weapons - nukes and biologicals. So it has lasted longer than it need have already and will likely drag on.
My solution for Afghanistan is simple, cheap, humane and decisive. Whenever I mention it I'm called a lunatic or monster.
If we wanted an end to not just the current Afghan conflict but all such conflicts all we need to do is to erect a fence with signs that warns everyone that the largely deserted mountains and highlands are permanently off limits because we have seeded the hills with Anthrax.
There is an island off the coast of England that was used for Anthrax tests decades ago. It is posted with signs warning people not to land.
The Afghanistan highlands have been a refuge for outlaws since at least the time of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. Bandits and terrorists are easy to control on the flat lands but until now there has been no way to deny such people their mountain fasts.
This kind of policy would have made sense to Scipio Amelianus but moderns reject it out of hand in spite of the fact that it would shed no blood. I doubt if America will adopt my suggestion so when you tire of the hand to hand fighting that seems to drag on forever, remember we have the technical wherewithal to bloodlessly pacify the region but have rejected it presumably because no one wants to file the Environmental Impact Statement.
Albertosaurus
Larry Auster's website is the only one that I know of which deals with the delicate issue of Pashtun sodomy. Why not you, Steve?
Auster thinks he is breaking news but he isn't. Get a load of this:
http://www.bouhammer.com/2006/07/their-thursday-night-is-our-saturday-night/
Except their Sat. nite is very ghey.....
>>
How sad. He joined the war out of idealism but it turned out that the country he thought he was fighting for didn't exist.
>>
No kidding. Why would you volunteer to fight a war in Asia for a government that refuses to even -try- to protect it's sovereign borders--the most fundamental task of the armed forces? You can only pity the families of these morons.
I just (within the past 15 minutes) finished reading John Krakauer's book on the Pat Tillman story, titled "Where Men Win Glory." Yes, the title sounds portentious, but it's taken from the Iliad. Krakauer is a skilled writer, and he handles the military's extensive efforts to cover up Tillman's friendly-fire death in order to extract the maximum propganda value from this tragedy. Truly disgusting. I recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about Pat Tillman's life, death, and the cover-up that extended up and down the chain of command.
"Even the most hard-headed foreign policy realist would have invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 if only to unleash a brief but devastating punitive lesson. Thus Pat Tillman would have likely met the same fate had deranged neocons not been in charge."
That is a good distinction, and I'm glad you pointed it out. Tillman died during the part of the "raid" that was necessary.
But it ain't necessary now and we should get out.
The Taliban practice pederasty? Well then, that settles the question of gays in the military: bring them in now, the more the better. The Taliban are the courageous ones in this conflict, men in sandals armed with only assault rifles, RPGs, IEDs, taking on the most heavily armed forces in the world. Without the jets, helicopters, tanks, troop carriers, body armor, high tech communications, night vision equipment, advanced sniper rifles, and so on, that the Americans have, they fight on and are stalemating us. The Americans hide behind all of these tools because their hearts are not in this affair. What are they fighting for, a $30,000 annual salary? Free college tuition someday?
***You don't watch the news much, do you? I think he was too "masculine" to ba a "conservative."***
What does Twoof know about masculinity? Or about conservatives for that matter? As though the people Twoof is talking about were actual conservatives! Idiot.
"My anti-semitic credentials are getting to be about as good as anyone's in the paleo-verse, but you guys are simply nuts if you think that we aren't at war with Islam."
So what are you saying, you can't walk and chew gum at the same time?
And no, "we" are not at war with Islam. You see anyone actually fighting "Islam"? You think we are in Iraq and Afghanistan because we are fighting "Islam"? You think "our" government is really serious about defense when it leaves our borders open and defenseless, while chasing half-way around the world to drop bombs on random camel-jockeys? Seriously?
Are you really that stupid?
Yes, Islamic radicalism is a problem, and we should not be inviting Muslims into our countries. But, we shouldn't be over there bombing and occupying their countries, either. The same people who created our immigration problem also created our "Muslim problem"; and you know damn well jew that is.
Don't over-estimate the Islamic problem. In terms of military threat is a minor problem at best. The 911 attacks were a mere pinprick; the US govt.'s over-reactions to 911 was a far bigger self-inflicted wound than anything Osama & Co. could have hoped to achieve on their own.
If we had control over our own foreign policy, we wouldn't have this alleged "war with Islam". Islamic radicals would be too busy running from the state security forces in their own despotic countries to ever bother us. We'd trade with Islamic countries for oil and that would the full extent of our dealings with them, period, full stop.
"... because the Taliban can't shoot that straight"
The coroner may have been an HBD'er, but that doesn't mean that there can't be exceptions.
see: Zaitsev, Lt. Vassily (or whoever the French sailor was who killed Nelson).
"Steve, I know trashing neocon's and their disastrous foreign policy ideas is one of your main thangs, but beating that dead horse when it comes to the Pat Tillman story is misguided at best. Even the most hard-headed foreign policy realist would have invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 if only to unleash a brief but devastating punitive lesson. Thus Pat Tillman would have likely met the same fate had deranged neocons not been in charge."
Uh, no. WRONG. The "hard-headed foreign policy realist" would have advised invading Afghanistan to unleash a BRIEF punitive expedition, and then immediately LEAVE.
We invaded in 2002. Tillman died in 2004. What were we still doing in Afghanistan two years later, two years after "mission accomplished"? Hmmm???
So, sorry, your argument fails.
"My takeway from the The Tillman Story is that this is just another attempt to undermine traditional values by fabricating a conspiracy where none existed in order to trash the armed forces."
LOL...wot?
You serious? Really? No cover-up existed, huh? It's all a big conspiracy to trash the armed forces?
Dontcha think that the armed forces are the one's running this "conspiracy"?
Have you forgotten Jessica Lynch already? Don't you see a pattern here? Connect the dots? Hello? Hello? .....Bueller?
"Pat Tillman died in an accident; does this somewhat deflate his heroic gesture? Sure, but any director with even 1 semester of film school under his belt would know how to edit that narrative to still produce a rousing, patriotic biopic. A non-liberal director would also understand the generals' reasons for not wanting word of what really happened to get out lest it demoralize the troops, and treat that sympathetically. But what we have here are SWPLs marinated in the 60's paranoid style who think that any institution that is not as open and free-wheeling as a hippie commune must somehow be sinister and evil."
No, what we have here is a consistent pattern of "our" military lying to us, and dismissing this as a bunch of paranoid hippy SWPL bullshit is stupid in the EXTREME.
We were TOLD after 911 that the military would lie to us and plant false stories (like they haven't already been doing this for a century or more) and also yes they would target and kill journalists who weren't cooperating with the US military's wartime deception campaign - a campaign of deception aimed at the American people, not at the enemy.
Get a clue: this is not "our" military, this is not "our" country, and trying to defend these lies shows that you are still stuck in the old left vs right, blue vs red, straight-jacket mindset that ensures we never get a clue about what is really going on.
Fortunately people like Jessica Lynch and Tillman's family did not go along with this military dog and pony show. One wonders just how many other whoppers and lies weren't stopped by the occasional honest person; how much of our current dialogue, things that we "know" to be true, are actually lies promoted by "our" government? We'll never know for sure.
"My solution for Afghanistan is simple, cheap, humane and decisive. Whenever I mention it I'm called a lunatic or monster.
If we wanted an end to not just the current Afghan conflict but all such conflicts all we need to do is to erect a fence with signs that warns everyone that the largely deserted mountains and highlands are permanently off limits because we have seeded the hills with Anthrax."
LOL, apart from being a lunatic and a monster, you are also naive in the extreme. Why would "we" want to "win" in Afghanistan?
Who says anyone running this farce is interested in "ending" it? They won't even define what "victory" is! How will we know it when we see it if we don't know what 'it' is?
This is just another government program, like the "war on poverty", or the "war on drugs". You don't "end" a government program! You find endless excuses to perpetuate it. You don't want to risk getting your budget cut! You think of ways of growing your budget!
Anthrax! Brilliant! What are you, stupid? Don't kill the job! Anyone who seriously proposes solutions that end the thing rather than perpetuate it, goes to the corner with a dunce cap on his head.
Bad Albertosaurus! Straight to bed and no dinner for you tonight.
Albertosaurus; two things.
First Victor Davis Hanson is a dumb ass.
Second the war in Afghanistan is unlike the war against Germany and Japan in several aspects. There is no centralized enemy command structure and no government to issue surrender orders. Furthermore, the Germans and the Japanese were waging war against their neighbors and occupying several other sovereign nations. The Taliban seems content to pour acid on the faces of women who want an education but are otherwise not even a remotely credible threat to anyone else because of their primitiveness.
The war in Afghanistan is ostensibly a war on terror. A war against an emotion. The measurable objectives of the war is to prevent Jihadist terror attacks upon the United States. Fairly successful so far. Unfortunately for the geniuses running the country, the simple act of perhaps not letting Afghan or Pakistani nationals into the country is apparently too complex a solution for them to wrap their heads around.
Albertosaurus you are neither a lunatic nor a monster for recommending that the United States nuke what few cities Afghanistan has and infect the population with biological agents to "win" the war. To draw your plan to it's logical conclusion, we should probably exterminate the world's entire Muslim population beginning with America's while we are at it. Nuking Afghanistan into the paleolithic is not likely to endear America to anyone with a Jihadist mindset.
Of course there is as I mentioned the more logical alternative of simply not letting Muslims into the United States.
No Albertosaurus you are neither a lunatic nor a monster. You are like your friend Victor Davis Hanson, simply a dumb ass.
Marketing organizations are also useless Steve, when Mohammed Atta is coming at ya, in a plane, right to your office in a skyscraper.
My criticism of your world-view is that you are stuck in 1965 or so. The Taliban are a threat, because they allowed bin Laden to launch a plot that ended up killing 3,000 Americans, and could have killed thousands more, and wiped out either the Capitol or the White House, and act of war either way.
Its not the burdens of Empire, its the burdens OF GLOBALIZATION. Your cheap Chinese sneakers and computer has a cost: that folks from Pakistan, or Iran, or Afghanistan, can get hold of nuclear weapons if the US DOES NOT INTIMIDATE people enough.
The Taliban said, "go ahead" to Bin Laden, and then refused to turn him over, because they did not FEAR the US. Given that Pakistan is nuclear armed (and Iran is or soon will be), our choices are limited.
In Afghanistan, we can launch drone after drone after drone, zapping bad guys with little risk and relatively little collateral damage, in a way we could not from the Indian Ocean under Clinton. For every Tillman we lost, *THEY* lost 1,000.
In E.B. Sledge's "With the Old Breed," he discusses a similar incident that was hushed up. On Peleliu a Marine fell asleep (no-no, Japanese soldiers staged infiltration attacks), the Japanese attacked, and he shot and killed his fox-hole mate and best friend. The First Marines were among the most highly trained. This always happens.
The difference between WWII then (half a million DEAD alone) and Iran/Iraq (about 8,000 dead so far in nine years) is that America in 1940 was 89% White, 10% Black, and 1% everything else.
Today its much less. [I've seen on the US Census site 65% White, or 74% White, or 79.6% White, on the quick facts or ACS estimates at various times over the last few years. So who knows?] Reihan Salam, noted in his "Glen Beck is the White Malcolm X" piece in the Daily Beast that Americans over 65 are 80% White, under 18 are only 56% White, and White births will be outnumbered by non-White births this year.
A monocultural society can take far more pain, casualties and treasure spent, in war with others, than a multicultural society. The Ottoman collapse in the 18th Century onwards was a reflection of that (lack of total Turkish ethnic dominance) as was Britain, Japan, Germany all fighting on long past the point of logic and reason.
America's problem with fighting in Afghanistan to zap unfriendly ISI/Taliban/AQ folks with drones (really, the only reason we are there, and the only really effective thing we do) and make a statement about turf/deterrence, is that we are not White-monocultural enough. That's a necessary (but not sufficient, as Japan shows today) condition for maintaining unity on ANYTHING that is hard but necessary to do.
Under Islam, you are either:
1) An infidel slave in Dar al-Islam who is paying the Jizya [the tax on infidels], or
2) An infidel in Dar al-Harb who is fighting for his life, or
3) Dead.
So your choices are death, slavery, or fighting.
If we're really at war with Islam, I'd think that one choice would be to stop Muslims from moving to America. But nobody, not even you, mentions that one. So I'm skeptical that anyone really believes that we are at war with Islam.
"The Tillman Story" missed the ”untold story” that both the Democratic Congress and the Obama Presidency shielded General Stanley McChrystal from scrutiny and punishment for his central role in the cover-up of Pat Tillman’s friendly-fire death. This cover-up was a thoroughly bi-partisan affair. It wasn’t just a case of the Bush administration and the Army stonewalling the Democratic Congress. Congress didn’t just “fumble” the ball, they threw the game.
It’s not surprising that after their initial cover-up of Pat Tillman’s friendly-fire death fell apart, Army officers and the Bush administration lied to protect their careers. But after they took control of both Houses of Congress in 2006, the Democrats (including Congressman Waxman, Senator Levin, Senator Webb, and Senator McCain) could have gone after those responsible. Or at least not promoted them twice!
Just before the 2006 mid-term elections, Kevin Tillman published his eloquent letter, “After Pat’s Birthday”. Kevin had hoped a Democratic Congress would bring accountability back to our country. But, just as with warrantless wiretapping and torture, those responsible for the cover-up of his brother’s friendly-fire death have never been held accountable for their actions.
I’ve posted “The [Untold] Tillman Story” at http://www.feralfirefighter.blogspot.com
On the subject of masculinity and political leanings:
http://justnotsaid.blogspot.com/2008/10/male-hormones-and-politics.html
(Whether you're white or black, the extent to which you stick up for your own does seem to be a matter of hormones. Just look at all the '08 Presidential primary candidates.)
@ Black Sea
Krakauer published the revised paperback edition of his book last month. I haven't gotten the chance to read it yet, but a quick comparison shows that he added about 20 pages to his account of the Army's cover-up, especially McChrystal's role. However, for some reason he didn't discuss the bipartisan nature of the cover-up.
My anti-semitic credentials are getting to be about as good as anyone's in the paleo-verse, but you guys are simply nuts if you think that we aren't at war with Islam.
Anyone who thinks we are "at war" with "Islam" has a few screws loose. Americans are trading and doing business with millions of Muslims every day. The number of Muslims who've tried to attack the US at home can probably fit in a small classroom (of course, not counting the "terrorists" that resist US forces in their countries).
Pederasty has been going on with the Pashtun for eons--part of their culture. You find that quite a bit in Muslim lands in which women are a forbidden.
Friendly fire has always gotten this kind of treatment --common during VietNam too, remember?
Morale is a delicate thing in war.
Well, the US Army's advantage is in fact technological rather than training when it comes to smallarms. Virtually all the M4 carbines are equipped with either ACOG 3-4X optical sights or red dot scopes. Compare that to the short sight radius AKMs with their leaf-type rear sights. It's a lot easier to shoot accurately with optical sights as compared to open sights.
And note that the Appleseed folks at rwva.org have voluntarily trained US military personnel because US military marksmanship training is awful.
http://www.appleseedinfo.org/news/news-2010-04-01-article_5023.html
"Marksmanship training includes historical lessons"
Johnny B. Goode:
Steve has discussed Afghan pederasty before. He said that fundamentalist Islam may appeal to Pashtuns because they recognize their own culture is so screwed up they need that kind of moralism. He has pointed out the the first act of the group of students that would be known was the "Taliban" was to rescue a young boy being fought over by two warlords. He mocked Andrew Sullivan over his take on the Taliban's policy against young beardless men serving with them for that reason.
"Anonymous said...
Uh, no. WRONG. The "hard-headed foreign policy realist" would have advised invading Afghanistan to unleash a BRIEF punitive expedition, and then immediately LEAVE."
Quite true. We should have wreaked old-testament like vengence, and then left. Vengence, not nation-building, not anti-terrorism operations. Vengence. And left with the admonition that we could be back in 30 minutes with nuclear weapons, and next time, no more Mr. Nice Guy. If our nation behaved like that, we would be loved no less than we are today, but we would be feared and respected a great deal more. By 2004, when Tillman died, the Afghanistan adventure was already a pointless exercise.
Incidentally, Obama announced today the end of combat operations, however there are still, I believe, several combat brigades stationed there.
"Anonymous said...
They are now fighting to stop the rampant pederasty going on in Afghanistan."
Actually, no. We will ultimately be fighting to defend pederasty in Afghanistan. To do otherwise would be culturally insensitive.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/28/INF21F2Q9H.DTL
Re: Islamic immigration. Restricting Muslim immigration into America is taken for granted on this blog, which is why it doesn't need to be mentioned constantly. But thanks for bringing it up.
"My anti-semitic credentials are getting to be about as good as anyone's in the paleo-verse, but you guys are simply nuts if you think that we aren't at war with Islam."
I really enjoy the honesty of that comment.
It's one of the reasons the paleo-verse is repellent even though the paleo-verse is the only place you can honestly discuss race and immigration.
Severn:
Yep. The low cost thing we could do to prevent future 9/11 style attacks is the thing we haven't done--secure the borders and be really careful about whom we issue visas to, especially from Muslim countries. Instead, we are spending billions occupying and killing people in ungovernable third world hellholes, building the infrastructure fir a police state here at home, and spending tons of money on illiterate TSA goons operating million-bucks-a-pop porno scanners.
A cynic might almost suspect that the folks in charge care less about preventing terrorism than building their fiefdoms, spreading the government money around, and building mechanisms to keep themselves in power indefinitely.
There is no plausible way that the us could have sharia, dhimmitude, etc, imposed on us. None. If Tillman thought he was defending us from that, he was a fool. But I doubt he believed anything so silly as that. That particular brand of fool mostly enlists in the 101st patriotic keyboard division, not the Rangers.
Similarly, despite the propaganda aimed at the low IQ set, we're not remotely at war with Islam. A number of our important allies (Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia) are Muslim countries, we have lots of Muslim soldiers and citizens, etc. It's just BS for the rubes, rather like the freak out over the "ground zero mosque."
Watch the next couple years. We'll get a big GOP victory this year, with a tea party flavor to it. And the borders won't be secured, the Citibanks and Goldmans will still have an implicit guarantee of taxpayer bailout as needed, the budget won't be brought any closer to balance, the state will continue to grow bigger and more powerful and less responsive. But those politicians will bravely take a stand against Islam, so long as the polls say it's safe.
We invaded Afghanistan at the tail end of 2001. Tillman was killed about 2 years into the war hunting al Qaeda- not 8 years into the war policing the grounds of the new, $400 million Andrew Sullivan Memorial School of Social Thought and Proctology. My point is he was still killed within the time limits of a punitive mission carrying out the acts he had expressly signed on to do. Sure, perhaps 2 years in is really stretching it, but any real military operation in Afghanistan would have still required logistics which alone take months to build up and then tear down. The situation in which Tillman was ultimately killed existed from the start of the war and could have just as easily claimed his lie a year earlier than it did.
No, what we have here is a consistent pattern of "our" military lying to us, and dismissing this as a bunch of paranoid hippy SWPL bullshit is stupid in the EXTREME.
Let's see- the truth our military lied to us about was Pat Tillman getting intentionally fragged by his own platoon mates? No. Snuffed out by a corrupt Army colonel after threatening to expose his opium smuggling arrangement with the Taleban? No. What about sacrificed on a fool's mission so some a$$hat politician could claim fresh victory in time for that year's election cycle? Not even that.
Tillman was killed in combat, serving his country, and there is no one to blame. SWPL-ism is more than just a set of political positions- it is a way of being that does not accept the imperfections of life or that good people sometimes have to make unpleasant decisions. Reluctantly holding back some or part of the truth in order to avoid a crushing blow to morale? Traditionalist. Posting every wart and blemish to Wikileaks so one can revel in depressive paralysis? Muy SWPL.
TGGP:
Steve has also discussed "the achievement gap" more than once. I thought I'd bring it up because the MSM has caught up with Sailer.
Regarding Tillman, he was a bright guy, apparently well-read, and anything but a fool. He joined up in that euphoric period after 9/11. Remember that? When we thought we were on the right side of history, before Bush manipulated us with lies and deceit?
Look, I feel sorry for Tillman's family. But what happened to him was all part of the game, to use a sports metaphor. Friendly fire has happened in every war. It was in no way comparable to Jessica Lynch, which was a pack of lies from start to finish.
I believe that he died an honorable death during the phase of the Afghan war that was justifiable. The government shouldn't have lied about his death, and the reaction to his death is in part a reaction to the government's lack of honesty.
The real reason for our military presence in the "Muslim world" is oil. The British used to patrol the Persian Gulf, now it's us. This would be the case whether AQ existed, whether Israel existed. I think it is suicidal for the West to import Muslims into its midst while this is going on, but that's what's happening.
It's only a matter of time before another series of terrorist attacks.
Greenriverman:
If preferring uncomfortable truth to morale-preserving lies is SWPL, sign me up. After all, that's why I follow the HBD discussions in the first place. If I were inclined to give folks a pass for spreading the happy horseshit to keep from dealing with socially disruptive discussions, I'd be a Steven J Gould fan.
Further, you keep making arguments about identity instead of fact: linking telling the truth about the coverup, or wanting to hear the truth, is somehow SWPL. Again, if I found such arguments convincing, I'd want to be lied to about race and IQ, in order to avoid being a Nazi or racist or redneck.
The defining feature of the war on terror has been the overwhelming willingness of people at the top of government and media to lie to us, repeatedly and without shame. Just like the Abu Girab photos were jar the result of a few bad apples, just like the Gitmo prisoners were the worst of the worst, just like everyone knew Saddam had WMDs, and on and on. One result is the proliferation of conspiracy theories. A bigger one is people like me assuming anything coming from certain bits of the feds or the media is likely to be bullshit. This has a cost. We should push back against it.
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