Pat Tillman, Liberal Hero

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" Zepp " <zepp

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 19:46:25 -0700

[Zepps_News] #Pat Tillman, liberal hero

 

 

 

Pat Tillman, Liberal Hero

 

Dave Zirin, The Nation, October 6, 2005

 

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051024/zirin

 

" I don't believe it, " seethed Ann Coulter.

 

Her contempt was directed at a September 25 San Francisco Chronicle

story reporting that former NFL star and Army Ranger war hero Pat

Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan last year, believed the US war on

Iraq was " f***ing illegal " and counted Noam Chomsky among his favorite

authors. It must have been quite a moment for Coulter, who upon

Tillman's death described him in her inimitably creepy fashion as " an

American original--virtuous, pure and masculine like only an

American male can be. " She tried to discredit the story as San Francisco

agitprop, but this approach ran into a slight problem: The article's

source was Pat Tillman's mother, Mary.

 

Mary and the Tillman family are relentlessly pushing for answers to the

questions surrounding Pat's death in Afghanistan. They want to know why

it took the Pentagon five weeks to tell them he died in a tragic case of

friendly fire. They want to know why they were unwitting props at Pat's

funeral, weeping while lies were told by eulogizing politicians. Mary is

now hoping that a new Pentagon inquiry will bring closure. " There have

been so many discrepancies so far that it's hard to know what to

believe, " she said to the Chronicle. " There are too many murky details. "

 

The very private Tillmans have revealed a picture of Pat profoundly at

odds with the GI Joe image created by Pentagon spinmeisters and their

media stenographers. As the Chronicle put it, family and friends are now

unveiling " a side of Pat Tillman not widely known--a fiercely

independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his

country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq,

where he served a tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests

ranged from history books...to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite

author. " Tillman had very unembedded feelings about the Iraq War. His

close friend Army Spec. Russell Baer remembered, " I can see it like a

movie screen. We were outside of [an Iraqi city] watching as bombs were

dropping on the town.... We were talking. And Pat said, 'You know, this

war is so f***ing illegal.' And we all said, 'Yeah.' That's who he was.

He totally was against Bush. " With these revelations, Pat Tillman the PR

icon joins WMD and Al Qaeda connections on the heap of lies used to sell

the Iraq War.

 

Tillman's transition from one-dimensional caricature to critically

thinking human being is a long time coming. The fact is that in death he

was far more useful to the armchair warriors than he had ever been in

life. When the Pro Bowler joined the Army Rangers, the Pentagon brass

needed a loofah to wipe their drool: He was white, handsome and played

in the NFL. For a chicken-hawk Administration led by a President who

loves the affectations of machismo but runs from protesting military

moms, this testosterone cocktail was impossible to resist. The problem

was that Tillman wouldn't play their game. To the Pentagon's chagrin, he

turned down numerous offers to be its recruitment poster child.

 

But when Tillman fell in Afghanistan the wheels once again started to

turn. Now the narrative was perfect: " War hero and football star dies

fighting terror. " The Abu Ghraib scandal was about to hit the press, so

the President found it especially useful to praise Tillman as " an

inspiration on and off the football field, as with all who made the

ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror. " His funeral was nationally

televised. Bush even went back to the bloody well during the

presidential campaign, addressing his team's fans on the Arizona

Cardinals' stadium Jumbotron.

 

We now know, of course, that this was all a brutal charade. Such callous

manipulation is fueling the Tillman family's anger. As Mary Tillman said

this past May, " They could have told us up front that they were

suspicious that [his death] was a fratricide, but they didn't. They

wanted to use him for their purposes.... They needed something that

looked good, and it was appalling that they would use him like that. " A

growing number of military families, similarly angered, are criticizing

the war in Iraq through organizations like Military Families Speak Out.

 

As for Chomsky, whom Ann Coulter would undoubtedly label " treasonous, "

Mary Tillman says a private meeting was planned between him and Pat

after Pat's return--a meeting that never took place, of course. Chomsky

confirms this scenario. This was the real Pat Tillman: someone who, like

the majority of this country, was doubting the rationale for war,

distrusting his Commander in Chief and looking for answers. The real Pat

Tillman, the one with three dimensions, must stick in the throat of the

Bush-Coulter gang, a pit in the cherry atop their bloody sundae.

 

--

 

If you're poor and steal during a national crisis, you're a looter.

If you're rich and steal during a national crisis, you're a Republican.

 

Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!

Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.

 

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