Update [2005-9-23 22:14:16 by Armando]: By Armando.
Today from the
Cunning Realist, his take on Pat Tillman as more and more information emerges. Pat Tillman interrupted his career to enlist in the war. If he was a GOP poster boy and hero elsewhere, he was absolutely venerated in the state of Arizona.
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.
The extent of the disgrace defies belief: the initial coverup of the way Tillman died, the harvesting of that death for political expedience as the Abu Ghraib story broke, the predictable promotions of those arguably responsible for what happened on the ground that day, the changing of crucial testimony, the destruction of physical evidence, and the willful, flat-out lies our political and military leadership told to Tillman's family and the American public.
In the context of Tillman's strong and openly-stated opinions about Bush and the war in Iraq, it's all more than a bit interesting.
It is all more than a bit interesting, but let's cut something off at the pass before it starts. What we don't need are people going around saying his comrades murdered him because he opposed the war. There is plenty of room fro criticisms and objection without getting all National Enquirer about it.