The “specifics” are that Tillman died in Afghanistan, not Iraq.
You left-wingers are constantly complaining that Bush implied that Iraq was involved in 9/11. Then you immediately confuse the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. Maybe it isn’t Bush’s fault that you don’t know what you are talking about.
Let’s try to keep this straight. Tillman died in Afghanistan. Therefore, if you are going to argue that he was a deluded fool, you are going to have to try and justify Rall’s fucking lie that al-Queda had no connections in Afghanistan.
If you claim, as Rall does, that Tillman was a racist, murderer, and idiot, then you have to establish that the war in Afghanistan was racist, murderous, and idiotic, and that al-Queda was not supported and defended by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
I realize that for some Dopers rational thought is drowned out by the “Bush Iraq evilevilevil” playing on continuous loop in their heads, but perhaps the rest of us can think straight. Iraq and Afghanistan are different countries, and different wars.
Hello? Are you even reading my posts. I said Tillman died in Afghanistan. I said the cartoon would have been more effective if he had died in Iraq…and I am not confusing the two wars. Tillman served in Iraq before he was killed in Afghanistan. Please keep up with the thread.
I was talking about his service in IRAQ, where he DID serve before he was killed in Afghanistan. My contention is that many of those who enlisted after 9/11 were making a naive assumption that Bush would be responsible in how he deployed troops. Bush was not. I don’t know what Pat Tillman’s motives were but if his enlistment was inspired by 9/11 and he was subsequently sent to Iraq- which had NOTHING TO DO with 9/11- then his faith in Bush was betrayed. I never said he was a “deluded fool” or anything like it. The ONLY thing I said was that he may have been naive in trusting Bush.
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If you claim, as Rall does, that Tillman was a racist, murderer, and idiot, then you have to establish that the war in Afghanistan was racist, murderous, and idiotic, and that al-Queda was not supported and defended by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Where the hell did I claim that Tillman was a “racist, a murderer and an idiot.” I specifically condemned all three of those assertions? Are you reading my posts or are you just skipping to the bottom of the thread?
Read my posts, Shodan. I do not have any confusion.
It is an appallingly bad cartoon, no doubt. I’m all for mocking the stupidity of the media, not to mention mocking and protesting the “reasoning” that got us into the war in Iraq, but bashing Tillman in the way Rall does is truly in spectacularly poor taste.
At first offended, but I like Rall’s explanation and I don’t think the cartoon should not have been published.
Definitely the main point of the cartoon is the media’s pronouncement of him as a “Hero”. But Rall’s “opposite of hero” maybe should not have been presented as “idiot”.
I think that Rall’s main goal here was to shock people out of the brain-dead acceptance of anyone who dies as a HERO – a type of thinking that will potentially prolong this absurdity and get even more people killed – and Tillman was a useful vehicle for that.
The question for me is whether the disrespect paid to Tillman outweighs the important message of the cartoon. Obviously if you don’t think the message is valid, the question is easy for you.
For me, it’s not so easy to say. Because if there’s a cry raised when people start realizing that any soldier who dies isn’t necessarily a HERO, and that cry gets us out of their sooner, then there are going to be lives saved. If some disrespect to a fallen soldier is the price for that, who am I to say its wrong?