Ann Coulter is a pathetic caricature. I can't see how anyone takes her seriously. If she wasn't a thin, female, youngish blond, nobody would pay any attention to her. I predict one day, Ann Coulter will either completely flame out and explode or completely flip and renounce a lot of her ridiculous incendiary statements. My condolences to Pat Tillman's family. I hope they speak out loudly enough that someone is held accountable for the deception and Pat's views become known by the American public.
Why does Mary Tillman turn "friendly fire" into "fratricide?" What lies were the "weeping politicians" telling at Pat Tillman's funeral? Wasn't the "nationally televised" funeral on ESPN? The "I'm f.....n' Pat Tillman" quote seems oddly out of place with his supposed desires for no special treatment or recognition. Did anybody else find that report kind of odd? One thing that is being overlooked here: Tillman was furiously doing his duty in spite of what may have been personal reservations. How does that translate to stateside non-supporters of the war?
It translates because some people keep saying that if we dont' support the mission we don't support the troops, or even that it means we love the terrorists, want them to win, and were supporters of Saddam. This was a walking talking contradiction to those statements. Good for Pat.
Apparently Pat Tilman believed in fighting terrorism like virtually all Americans do, so he joined. He also thought the illegal war in Iraq was not the way to go. Contradiction resolved. I think Tilman might have easily felt that it is not the duty of Americans who feel a war in illegal to volunteer to fight it. I think he would have had only scorn for the chickenhawks who refuse to act on what they allegedly believe in.
Pat died allegedly not supporting part of the war that he was fighting in. The rest of us chicken-hawks and chicken-doves just squawk and coo from the armchairs.
You solve the contradiction so conveniently, but you still have Tillman "illegally" killing the "enemy" in an "illegal war." I wonder how Tillman slept at night? Was he just doing his duty? Do we as citizens have any implicity duty other than to protest? I really doubt that Tillman would have expected old farts like you and me to get on the front lines.
Did Tillman have no problem with fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan? That's a little different. The war started there. Later Bush used 9/11 to go to war against the guy who tried to kill his daddy (there are other reasons, none of them too honorable, except to rid the world of Saddam, probably to replace him with a more U.S.-friendly dictator); was Tillman sent to Iraq to fight? Did he volunteer? Did he have an epiphany after fighting there, reading up on all the B.S. the spin-meisters put out there? And no matter the answers, it was grotesque to use Tillman as a war poster child, not informing the family he'd been killed by friendly fire until after we'd dragged his corpse through fields of roses and sunshine.
It is only natural for the military to use "celebrities" to further their cause. Think of Elvis. Think of Ted Williams. Think of all the Hollywood luminaries and Athletes who participated in military life. It happens and happened all the time and will happen in the future. Nothing happens quickly in the military and you all demand resolution before Tillman's funeral in a week or less.
I support part of the war our military is involved in too. In fact I wish we would have done what was necessary to help do more in Afghanistan. I agree with Pat Tillman on everything I've heard about him so far.
http://www.chomsky.info/books.htm and http://www.chomsky.info/articles.htm Have some of his writings or excerpts of his writings online. I don't believe any of them would qualify as light reading. Before reading those, a good background would be the Wikipedia articles on General Semantics and Memetics which are general linguistic theory articles. From what I've read the most insightful and useful are those articles and books which don't deal with specific political current events. These tend to come across as no more insightful than any political polemic no mater the author. (i.e. preaching to the chior) He is a professor of linguistics, and the best (though most obtuse) writings are on the way that language is used not to elucidate but to obscure. The central (Platonic) idea of his best writings which deal with the interface between politics and linguistics is that language is only an aproximation of pure ideas, and as such can be manipulated. To place his writings in the proper context, one should understand that politically, his ideology is somewhat out of favor in the world today. It lies somewhere between Mikhail Bakunin and Leon Trotskey. Both are philosophers of pre-Soviet Arnarcho-Communist thought with philosophies that I would consider ideals for human behavior, that have proved somewhat difficult to implement in light of later discoveries in behaviorism and Game theory which reveal the selfish animal aspect of man. As a Muslim, you should also be aware of his self professed Zionism. From Wikipedia: ...but also understand that he is extremely critical of Israel and it's treatment of Palestinians and Arabs in general. From Wikipedia again:
Here's a video of pat's brother richard on real time friday night for those who missed it: <object width="640" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_t_V_7U8qdc&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_t_V_7U8qdc&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></embed></object> (language NSFW)
GEORGE BUSH went to war over OIL. He also wanted to set up Military bases so we could get closer to IRAN in case of conflict. This whole "tried to kill his daddy" excuse is so far from the truth of why they really invaded a country who had nothing to do with 9/11.
The Tillmans aren't Christians. Having celebrities and politicians come to a funeral to get PR points and then make statements about how he was "with God" when everyone who knew him knew he and his family were atheist is pretty offensive. He came off as needlessly rude and just a bit infantile with the all the cussing in his talk with Bill, but I don't blame his reaction at the funeral.
Wow, just wow. He really used to post things like that. "Thanks." Long before the Buddha led him to anger.
yeah, I'm sure if some Muslims came to the funeral of a Christian you knew, and said because of his following of the teachings of Mohammed, that Allah would reward him, nobody would be offended. What was offensive was people trying to force their religion into someone else's funeral.
